Horror Before Heroism
by SunlitColor
Summary: When two new Wardens are thrust together in a race against the growing Blight, will they be able to overlook their differences and save Fereldan - and their companions?
1. Chapter 1: The Beginning

They were running, crashing through the undergrowth, swatting branches out of their way, oblivious to which direction they were going or from which direction they had come. The cave had been easy enough to find - a gaping hole with pillars, ivy and brambles clinging to the stone - and twice as easy to leave. None of them wanted to see what treasures might lay further inside after staring into those black eyes. And so they ran without thought, fear clouding their judgement. And, as if the demon- and spider-infested cave wasn't enough to put them on edge, they had met with a Dalish elf whose red eyes glinted at them from the shadows.

One of the men stumbled and fell backwards, catching sight of the arrow pointed at them as they emerged from a thick patch of trees. The other two hauled him to his feet and they huddled together. They all knew the tales of the Dalish - deadly accurate archers with no mercy.

"You're just in time, _lethallan_," the elf said as a second stepped from the trees, her bow trained on them and a vicious glint in her red-brown eyes. "What should we do with these _shem_? Kill them?"

Her silence was more terrifying to the three human men than the elf's threat. Then she seemed to relax, her bowstring at only half draw. "Let them go with a warning."

"So they can bring more and drive us out," he asked in anger. "You are too soft."

"Look," one of the men said shakily, holding his hands up and taking a step forward. "We didn't know this was your forest. We would have stayed out it's just -"

"This is not our forest. You've strayed too close to our camp, _shem_."

"We'll leave. Just let us go."

"Why were you here?" Her voice was quiet, calm and even, and the three found it much more frightening than the other's anger.

"Treasure!"

"That's right. There's a cave with ruins and treasure. We didn't get very far in though."

"Why not," the elf asked.

"There was ..."

"There was a demon!"

The male elf guffawed. "So you're more akin to thieves than bandits."

"We aren't thieves! It was a ruin - abandoned, no one lives there and no one claims it."

"We know these woods," she muttered. "There are caves but no ruins. You lie."

"No!"

"We have proof!" The speaker stepped forward, a poorly wrapped bundle in his outstretched hand, trembling as the she-elf reached for it. She unwrapped it and stared for a moment, her fingers running over the strange symbols.

"What is it, _lethallan_?" She gave no answer other than to toss the fragment to him. He caught it deftly in one hand, his bow still in the other and the arrow already replaced in its quiver. Her bow came to full draw just as quickly as his left it, giving the men no time to react. Not that any of them thought of running from the Dalish - it was said that a dozen arrows could leave their bow in half as many seconds. "This is … Where did you find this?"

"In the cave. There's probably lots more inside but …"

"We were too afraid."

Both elves gave a derisive chuckle in unison. "It's just like the _shemlen_ to be cowards after finding …" His voice trailed off as he stared at the fragmented tile again.

"What is it, Tamlen?"

He shook his head, tucked the treasure into a pouch at his waist, and pulled his bowstring to full draw again, the arrowhead glinting in the noonday light that streamed through the leaves overhead. "We will speak of it later. Now, _lethallan_, what shall we do with these **_shem_**?"

She hesitated, her eyes flickering between a brother of her clan - her best friend since childhood - and the three _shem._ Tamlen had already called her soft once; he did not share in her thoughts of learning about the human world which was vast in comparison to their traveling home - a home she was entrusted with protecting. She was a hunter. Perhaps she could not afford to be soft. She drew a breath. "One should serve as an example. The others can go, with a warning."

Tamlen nodded and changed his stance slightly. The men stumbled - over their words and each other - and two ran away without a second glance over their shoulders as the third fell to the forest floor. He would never get up again. Tamlen slung his shortbow over his back, checking to ensure that his _dar'misaan_ and clan shield would be easy to use if needed. He turned to stare at the younger elf, who in turn was staring at her boots.

"I would have let them all go, if you wanted," he said quietly. He knew she disliked killing unless necessary, and he knew that had not been necessary.

"Yet you would have killed them all had you been alone or with anyone else."

"Yes but for you, _lethallan_, I would make an exception."

She smiled and wiped at the single tear threatening to fall before slinging her bow over her shoulder. Tamlen couldn't help but smile back - the way her nose crinkled and her red-brown eyes lit up was contagious.

"Let's go see about this ruin."

Tamlen pulled the fragment from his pouch and held it between them as they walked. "This is written elvish, I'm sure of it. I've seen the same symbols and lines in Keeper Marethari's scrolls."

"_Lethallin_."

"I know, I know. But what's the worst that could happen? I'd just get extra duties and that's not so bad. I'd take it, even, if it meant I could discover something from our history."

"It looks like any other writing I've seen," she mumbled.

Tamlen laughed. "You can't read anyway, Emma Da'len."

"Do not call me that." He chuckled and ruffled her russet hair until the shorter strands fell out around her face. She tucked them behind her ears.

* * *

><p><em>"Emma Da'len! Emma Da'len! Emma Da -"<em>

_"What are you doing, _da'len_?" He spun on his heel and stared at the group of hunters. They had just returned from the forest, their weapons resting on their backs, their eyes tired, a wild boar and a stag bloodied among them._

_"I'm looking for Emma Da'len." They frowned, muttered. "She's this tall, has red hair and red eyes, and she's my _lethallan_."_

_"_Da'len_," one of them said quietly, kneeling down to the boy's height and setting a hand gently on his shoulder. "Do you know what you are saying? '_Emma da'len'_ means -"_

_"I am a little child."_

_The hunter started then smiled with a shake of his head. "So then you cannot -"_

_"Her name is Emma Da'len Mahariel. Even Keeper Marethari calls her that."_

_"Mahariel ..."_

_"_Da'len_." The group turned toward the new voice. The Keeper stood there, her arm around a shaking Ashalle, their hair beginning to grey with age and worry. "Have you seen Emma Da'len," she asked._

_"No," the young elf answered, drawing the vowel out until he ran out of breath. The Keeper waited patiently until he was finished._

_"It is very important that we find her, _da'len_. Ashalle is worried she may have strayed from the clan."_

_"Do we need to send out hunters to search, Keeper," one of the men asked, gripping the pommel of his _dar'misaan_._

_"I do not believe that is necessary just yet. Tamlen, you will look for her won't you?"_

_Tamlen nodded and ran off without a response from any of the adults. He and Emma Da'len had been playing a game of hide-and-seek just before; he thought she had found a very, very_ _good place to hide and was calling her name because he'd given up. Now he knew exactly where she was._

_He slowed as he neared the town, listening to the not-so-distant voices of the _shemlen_ as they went about their lives. He kept to the shadows of the trees, blue eyes staring out at the fields and farmhouses, at the few shepherds who tended their sheep, searching the vibrant green grass where the animals grazed for a spot of red. He hoped that it would be alone, bobbing to a song only it could hear, disappearing from view as it ducked behind a sheep. He frowned; it wasn't alone; **she** wasn't alone._

_He ran from his cover and slid down near the three different colored heads - one brown, one black, one red. The sheep nearest him let out a complaint; the children mimicked the noise._

_"Tamlen!"_

_"What are you doing, _lethallan_," he hissed angrily, peeking over his shoulder._

_She tucked her red hair behind her ears and glanced at the two she was with. Tamlen didn't mind that she wanted to befriend one of them - he was an elf after all, and it was their job as Dalish to lead the flat-ears back to the traditions of their people. It was the human that bothered him. Her green eyes flashed with a mix of joy and fear and curiosity as she smiled widely, her freckled face turning a light shade of pink. Tamlen scowled. He liked her even less when she did that; she was cute and he couldn't stand the thought crossing his mind._

_"I was learning a new song," the little elf girl said with a laugh. "Do you want to hear it?"_

_"No. We have to go, Emma Da'len."_

_"Emma. It's just Emma. Annine says it is a _shem_ name and Dornian says he has even heard it in the alienage before he left. So I want to be called Emma."_

_"Why would you want a _shemlen_ name?"_

_She cocked her head and hunched her shoulders. Tamlen knew that movement well; he was not going to like what she said but she was going to say it anyway. "I am a little child ... It is not a name, _lethallin_, but what I am. I cannot say _emma da'len_ when I am old and wrinkled with grey hair and my children are having children. I want a name - a real name - and if no one in the clan will name me then I will take a name from any. Annine and Dornian call me Emma because that is a name. And so I am."_

_Tamlen let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and hid a smile behind his hand. Emma, in Elvish, still was not a name but a statement, one that his friend had just said. He shrugged and looked over his shoulder again._

_"We must go."_

_"_Lethallin_, I hadn't taught them one of our songs yet. We always trade - songs or stories or trinkets or bits of food. Teach them with me, please."_

_"Ashalle is worried and she's already been to the Keeper; if we don't get back to them soon they'll send the hunters after us."_

_"Are the hunters terrifying," the dark haired elf asked, his blue eyes wide with fear. He was younger than Emma by looks, but still he knew stories of the Dalish - stories that she had laughed at and thrown to the wind as exaggerations of a rare occasion when the forest-dwelling elves were forced into action._

_"Ashalle is more terrifying," Tamlen said quietly._

_"Who is Ashalle," the human inquired as she stood and stretched. She leaned to one side and then the other, and her shirt pulled out of the waistband of her skirt to show the skin of her stomach. Tamlen quickly looked away._

_"She is ..." Emma paused. A frown lighted on her lips and she stared sideways at the ground. Tamlen knew she was thinking of how to word it and thanked the Creators that she was still cautious with them. "Something of a mother to me." She smiled and cocked her head again; it was an uncomfortable subject for her. "But to be honest, I am more frightened of Harhen Paivel. I suppose we should go."_

_"Then you'll teach us two songs next time, won't you?" Annine asked cheerfully. Emma nodded and the three - the human, the city elf, and the Dalish elf - clasped hands before the redheaded girl disappeared into the tall grass with her clanmate._

* * *

><p>The cave stood before them, yawning widely into a dark interior. The path that led down to it was twisting and sloped, covered in thick vines and prickly bramble branches, piles of crumbled stone here and there along the edges; the pillars had been worn smooth by years of wind save for where they had fallen onto the path. Tamlen placed his hand on one of them, twisting his fingers into the vines that curved there.<p>

"Do you remember seeing this," he asked, looking over to the elf that stood beside him.

Her shoulders were tense, her lips set in a hard line, eyes travelling through their surroundings, her fingers playing with the fletching of her arrows where they sat in the quiver at her hip. She turned her face towards him yet her eyes remained on the cave entrance. "No," she answered quietly. "And that worries me. We should return to the clan and ask Keeper Marethari's opinion."

"What? I'm not running back to them unless there's something to fuss about. Think about it, _lethallan_. If the cave wasn't here the last time we looked who is to say whether we will be able to find it again?"

"We can mark the trail."

"_Lethallan_." He took his free hand in hers and pulled her further down the path. "There's probably not any sort of thing to be worried about in there. The _shem_ are liars and thieves and beggars and murderers. Would you believe them?"

"They are not all like that, Tamlen," she said in a huff, her lips pushed into a pout. He drew a breath to answer then held it as she stepped in front of him and, her hand still in his, walked into the cave.

They stood in the near darkness for a moment until their eyes adjusted to the dim lighting; their breathing was the only sound they could hear. Emma swallowed past the fear, but the sickening feeling of dread only grew in her stomach. Tamlen gave her hand a squeeze then disappeared further into the cave. He came back holding a torch in one hand, his blond hair catching the firelight and shining like gold, eyes shifting between the bright blue of the noon sky and the dark blue of the night as the flame danced with his movements.

"Let's go, Emma."

She nodded.

The two elves stepped further into the cave, following the halls, climbing over roots and ducking beneath fallen stone archways, rattling the handles of locked doors. The ruins appeared human in design and they had seen no sign of treasure - or any other elvish remains.

Tamlen lowered the torch and stared at his boots as they reached the beginning of the cave again. "This is pointless," he mumbled. "There isn't anything here."

"Tamlen!"

His head jerked up. When had Emma left his side? It wasn't like her - wandering off on her own in a dangerous place; usually she just wandered away from the clan to watch the _shemlen_ in their towns, staying undetected and out of danger in the branches, but she always came back.

There was noise up ahead, movement in a hallway where before there had been none. Tamlen could pick out the rhythm of Emma's bow as it was drawn back and released beneath the constant hissing of … what was it? He shrugged his shield from his back and drew the _dar'misaan_ that was normally sheathed under it, tightening his grip as he saw the open door. He yelled as he went through, swinging the blade before he could even see what he was striking at. There was the hissing, coming from the pincers of multiple giant spiders, the high-pitched scream that accompanied their death, and the breaking of bones - he remembered it well from the time that he had broken his arm after following Emma over a waterfall - but that couldn't be from the spiders. He gasped as his eyes adjusted to the brightness of the room.

Emma was half-wrapped in a cocoon, firing arrow after arrow from her upside-down perch that the spiders had provided her with. Each one hit their mark, sending a spurt of blood into the air and an arachnid quivering back into the tunnel it had come from. Tamlen ignored her for the moment, confident that she could keep the spiders at bay, and turned his attention to the walking skeletons that bombarded him now. They were armored in tattered leather and rusted iron, their weapons - axes and swords - sprinkling red dust with each swing and clang of metal that met his own sword, their arms breaking and splintering as he forced all his strength into each swing. Only dark magic could have summoned the dead from their graves, he knew - powerful dark magic. He clenched his teeth and swung with both sword and shield until they quit moving.

The room was silent once again.

"What," he gasped. "What is going on? What was that?" He dropped the clan shield, a clattering echoing through the tunnels after the spiders, falling to his knees as his shoulders shook. He could feel the tears in his eyes, the warmth pressing as they threatened to fall. He slowed his breathing and stayed still until the trembling in his body had ceased; the moisture left his eyes without the tears ever falling. He picked up his sword and shield, replacing them on his back as he stood, and cast a glance over his shoulder.

Emma was slicing through the cocoon - as well as one could slice through such sticky material - with an arrow. She let out a gasp as the webbing gave way abruptly, catching herself on the uneven floor, a cloud of dust rising to cover her; she stood in the middle of it and straightened the light leather chestpiece she wore.

"What were you thinking, _lethallan_," he whispered.

She cocked her head and hunched her shoulders. She mumbled a reply that Tamlen could not hear. He shook his head as he stepped closer and wrapped her in a hug, tucking her head beneath his chin; the webs in her hair tickled his nose.

"There was a door," Emma said quietly. She could ignore the tremors racing through her body if Tamlen could. "It wasn't there when we passed the first time. I thought that if I tried it something might happen."

"Yes, you would get eaten by cave spiders and walking corpses. This place is full of dark magic, _lethallan_. I'm beginning to think that your caution should have been heeded by my stupidity. We can leave now. You're right - the fragment is enough."

"No, l_ethallin_, it isn't." Emma pushed away from Tamlen's embrace, ran two fingers over her bowstring to check for any frays or breakage, then replaced her arrow in the quiver at her hip and took a few steps. "There's another door."

Tamlen smiled half-heartedly. "Emma." He watched her as she turned slowly on one foot. She was scared, unwilling to admit it even to him, yet still willing to explore. Danger was not something Emma dealt with well - it made her stiffen, muddled her mind, slowed her actions so that she became nothing more than a doll to be toyed with and used - but for him, she would face danger; with him, she could handle anything.

"You were supposed to help Master Ilen today, weren't you," he continued. "So how did you end up here?"

Emma smiled and shrugged.

"You know me - I'll take any chance I get to wander away from the clan."

Tamlen laughed and stepped between her and the door. "That's true. You wander so much you'll probably end up joining the flat-ears and live in a _shemlen_ city one day."

"_Tel sahl'vunin_."

Tamlen chuckled again and turned the door handle. It opened easily and quietly as though it hadn't been sitting in an abandoned cave for Creators-knew-how-long and the two found themselves in the hallway they had been in before. Only this time, there was another door that mysteriously appeared where before there had been a stone wall. The older elf stepped forward, his hands balled into tight fists as he stared at a pile of bones and rubble, willing it not to move as the pair walked past. He was not watching the door they had come from or where he placed his feet, but he felt the stone move as he put weight on it. Emma gasped. Instead of a door where they had passed through, there was a statue - a vaguely familiar statue though neither of them could place where they had seen the likeness before.

Tamlen felt suddenly ill as a powder filled the air around the elves. He could no longer see Emma but could hear her coughing, the sound growing fainter as he tried to follow it, spinning in stumbling circles with one arm out as the other tried to keep the powder from entering his lungs.

He pushed into something that gave way an inch or two then stopped. A door, he thought, and pushed against it harder until it opened suddenly and he tumbled back. He lay still for a moment, breathing deeply and slowly until there was no pressure in his chest. "_Fenedhis_," he spat, and sat up.

The door had closed behind him. He stood and rushed to it, pushing against it with his hands and then a shoulder; there was no handle.

"Emma! Emma!" He pressed his ear to the cold stone and listened, his breath catching in his throat at the silence. "Emma Da'len!" His fingers danced across the seam where the door and wall met. He could always try to use his _dar'misaan_ to pry the door open; if it meant finding Emma safe he was even willing to face the beratement that he would get from Master Ilen and Hahren Paivel. He turned to search the room for anything he could use.

There was a mirror in the center of the room, among the crumbling walls and the cracked ceiling and dust-covered stone floor. It stood tall and elegant, somehow eerie and beautiful, intimidating and welcoming all at once. Tamlen couldn't see past it. It seemed to give off its own light, urging him closer to it, and he couldn't disobey. He slowly went forward, one step and then another, until he was at the bottom of the stairs leading up. A mirror on a raised pedestal, as though it was a thing to be worshipped - Tamlen had never seen anything like it before. He was up the stairs in an instant. He couldn't remember lifting his legs to walk up them but here he was, only an arm's length from the mirror. He reached out for it.

"Tamlen!"

He spun on his heel to see Emma raising her bow before being blocked from view by a massive shape - black and red and brown matted fur and sharp edges of broken rock and bone. He was frozen as the creature roared, standing up on two legs.

There was a clattering and a small fragment of stone bounced off the creature's head. It turned, surprisingly fast for how large it was, and stared with a dark fury in its black eyes at the she-elf that stood in the doorway. She raised her bow again, loosing an arrow in nearly the same movement; a second arrow followed in the same breath.

The creature roared again. It stumbled through the cavernous room. Emma kept tossing stones at it, drawing it out into the hallway. The bear-like monster swung its paws; the elf nimbly avoided the blind swipes. She stopped suddenly, looking up at Tamlen, her red eyes flashing with something he couldn't name. Then she was gone from view again as the creature stood once more, stretching to fill the doorway, towering over both elves. It opened wide its mouth and let loose a bellow that shook the cavern, sending chips of the ceiling to rain down on Tamlen's head. It slammed onto four paws again and was still.

"Emma!"

Tamlen drew his sword and held it tight in both hands as he stepped forward, down the stairs and up behind the beast. He paused as he realized this was the demon the _shemlen_ had spoken of. That made two truths and one lie - there still was no sign of treasure. Tamlen found he was shaking again - not out of fear for himself but out of fear for losing his _lethallan_.

"Emma Da'len," he whispered.

"Do not," she hissed through clenched teeth as she crawled from beneath the creature, "call me that." She brushed her hair behind her ears, ignoring the pieces that fell from the long braid over her shoulder. Her shoulders heaved with each breath and she stood with all her weight on one leg, holding one arm against her side. She stared at the creature, tears threatening behind her eyes, her lower lip quivering like when they were children.

"_Lethallan_, you …"

Emma smiled unexpectedly and stepped over the still-warm corpse to stand next to Tamlen. "An arrow in each eye," she mused. Tamlen started at the harsh words and casual tone, glancing at the beast's head to see that it was true - one arrow protruded from each eye socket as well as a third in its back. "It never slowed. Maybe it really was a demon. Let's get out of here."

Tamlen grabbed her wrist as she turned away. She grimaced. "Are you really going to leave without looking at the mirror? We're here already," he said. "Let's take a closer look."

"A closer look almost got you killed, Tamlen!"

"I know, but there's nothing here now."

"Have you even checked the tunnel," she asked incredulously. "There could be more spiders or more walking dead or even another one of these … these things. You weren't answering me when I was talking to you, _lethallin_, almost as if I wasn't here. I don't want to get any closer to that mirror. Let's go."

"_Lethallan_, look." Tamlen pulled her closer to the bottom of the steps and stared up. He pointed to the edge of the mirror. It was decorated with the same strange symbols as the fragment. "We found it: a piece of elven history. So let's take a closer look."

"Tamlen, I …"

Tamlen smiled and bounded up the stairs until he was in front of the mirror again. He stared at it, and the urge to reach out for it filled him again. "Can you feel that?" She clenched her jaw. "I think it knows we're here. It's …"

"Tamlen."

"It's showing me … things."

Emma stood next to him and looked - not at the mirror but at her best friend; he was not himself. His blue eyes were distant, searching the face of the mirror, clouded over with something that swirled and rippled. "Tamlen, let's go."

"There's a … a city." His words were coming slowly, annunciated too well, sentences forming as though it were something he was unused to. "Underground?"

"_Lethallin_, please."

His hand was reaching forward. She grabbed it and held his arm in both of hers. "A great blackness … It saw me …"

"_Lethallin_! Tamlen, let's go!"

"I can't … look away. _Lethallan_ … help me!"

Emma reached for his other hand as it went up, threading her fingers in his, only a second too late. As he brushed the surface of the mirror it began to hum, vibrating as the pitch rose to an unbearable screech. Emma thought she could hear screaming; whether it was her or Tamlen or something else entirely she couldn't say. She could no longer feel Tamlen and soon even her vision began to fail. A darkness came from the shaking mirror - a darkness like none she had known before. Complete and enveloping, it drove all senses away until all she could feel, and all she knew, was that she was utterly alone. She opened her mouth to scream yet no sound emerged. She was a part of the nothingness now, another piece of the _Banalhan_ to be used towards destruction in dizzying amounts.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: Enjoy! Reviews always welcome.<em>

_**EDIT:** March 10, 2015_

_tel sahl'vunin: not today (I took some liberties here. "sahl" is a shortened version of "sahlin" mostly because it sounds better to say "sahl'vunin" instead of "sahlin'vunin". Bit of a mouthful, I think.)_


	2. Chapter 2: And the End

There were voices nearby, a quiet murmuring of unease, worry clear in the air as Emma's eyes flickered open. She was lying on her back beneath a covering of furs, her armor and bow set to the side, the doorway blocked off with a curtain. She sat up. She couldn't remember arriving at the camp nor falling asleep in Ashalle's _aravel_.

Her body ached as she stood; she dressed quickly in the light Dalish leather armor and braided her hair before stepping out into the morning light. Perhaps it had all been a dream, she thought as she spun a circle. And yet … there was something … wrong. The clan was moving quickly; there were less chests and boxes sitting around the _aravels_ than usual; a handful of hunters tread along the edge of camp, searching the trees beyond the clearing; the atmosphere was tense; Hahren Paivel was near the fire with the children gathered; Keeper Marethari and her First were directing the clan to pack.

"You're finally awake, _lethallan_." She turned towards the speaker. Fenarel was carrying a sack on one shoulder, his eyes wide as he stared at her. "Everyone was so worried about you. How are you feeling?"

"C-confused," she answered slowly. "What's going on?"

"A _shemlen_ showed up with you slung over his shoulder. He said he'd found you on the ground, unconscious and alone. You were sick with fever; the Keeper had to use the old magic to heal you. You've the gods' own luck, _lethallan_." Fenarel sighed and set the sack at his feet. "The clan is leaving now. It seems that Tamlen managed to stir up trouble. I only hope it isn't the _shem_ that keep him from returning."

"Tamlen is missing?"

"Yes. You've … you've slept for two days, Emma. Do you not remember?"

"I remember … There were _shemlen_ in the forest. And a … cave. And Tamlen -" Fenarel flinched at the name.

"I should be going. The Keeper wanted to see you as soon as you awoke. Stay here and I'll bring her."

He hoisted the sack to his shoulder and turned, going back the same way that he had just come from. Emma clasped her hands together. "Mythal, Great Protector, watch over him and bring him back," she whispered. It was perhaps the shortest prayer she had said, and perhaps the first she had uttered without guidance from Hahren Paivel or one of the other elders, yet it was by far the most sincere. She began to pace as she waited. The clan still moved about her; those who came close avoided eye contact.

"_Da'len_." She turned at the Keeper's voice, eyes wandering over the complex tattooing that covered her face. Fenarel did not return with her. "It is good to see you awake. I do not know what dark power held you, but it nearly bled the life from you. How are you feeling?"

"Where is Tamlen?"

"Do not worry, _da'len_. We have hunters searching for him. They will bring him back to us and then we will leave."

"Leave where, Keeper?"

Marethari sighed. "If what Duncan says is true and a Blight is indeed upon us then we must leave and go anywhere we can. Ashalle has already packed your things so you have time to answer my questions. Tell me, _da'len_, what happened."

"Tamlen and I saw some _shem_ in the forest and they to-"

"Did you harm them?"

"What," Emma asked in surprise. The Keeper was well known in the clan for listening; it was not often that she interrupted.

"Did you harm the _shemlen_ that you met?"

"I …" Emma hesitated. She knew the truth would be a disappointment. Tensions had already begun to rise between the Dalish clan and the nearby village; to admit to killing a human could lead to a bloody confrontation - one which would only solidify the rumors of Dalish savagery. She could, of course, say that Tamlen had killed the man and still be right. Yet she would not be true in her mind. She had never lied to any member of her clan; she would not begin now. "We killed one," she said quietly, staring at her boots. "The others we let run."

"I feared as much. You have stirred up a hornet's nest, child."

Emma drew her elbows tighter to her sides. To be called 'child' rather than '_da'len_' by the Keeper was far worse to the elf than any amount of yelling.

"_Abelas_," she muttered. "_Ir abelas_, Keeper."

"Go on and tell me the rest then, _da'len_."

"They told us about a cave with treasure and elven ruins and a demon. Tamlen didn't believe them - about the demon. But we knew they were at least telling some truth about elven ruins; they had a fragmented tile with written Elvish. Tamlen and I found the cave and went in, though I said we shouldn't have …"

"It is alright, _da'len_. Even I would have been interested in such a cave. Go on."

"There were giant spiders and walking skeletons. And a mirror." She sighed; she held an arrow in her hands, toying with the fletching in worry. She could not meet the Keeper's gaze. "T-tam … he touched it and … that's … _Ir abelas,_ Keeper. That's all I remember."

There was silence for a moment. Footsteps approached and Emma glanced up.

"What were you thinking," Hahren Paivel asked, his concern masked in anger. "You both are fools! After seeing what was inside the cave you should have come straight back, gathered more hunters and -"

"Subjected more of our people to the same illness, Hahren," Keeper Marethari interjected calmly. "I think not. It was hard enough to keep one alive; I doubt I could have saved any if I had to spread my talents and time between multiple patients. While the _da'lenen_ should have used more caution - and perhaps more sense - they were right to go in on their own. Tell me, _da'len_," the Keeper said, turning to the small she-elf that stood with hunched shoulders and flitting eyes, "are you well enough to lead Merrill to the cave?"

"_Emma_." She straightened, replaced the arrow in her quiver, and her eyes blazed with determination. "But, Keeper, why Merrill?"

"She is my First; she will recognize any _Elvhen_ remains. She will also be able to aid you should the need arise as well as keep an eye on you. I wouldn't want you to overexert yourself, _da'len_. The priority is, of course, to find Tamlen. Go now."

"Pray for me, Keeper," Emma muttered, forcing a smile as she ran through the center of the clearing where the clan had camped.

She had seen Merrill pass by Master Ilen's _aravel_ some time ago and rushed past herself, taking the wood-and-mud steps down into the cook fire area. The pit was cold, the ashes grey, and the spit that normally stood over it gone. She did not pause but scrambled up the ridge on the other side, climbed a tree and leapt through the branches to another before dropping down beside Merrill. The older elf jumped and let out a shriek, drawing stares from a pair of hunters nearby. Emma smiled and waved, her mouth pulling to one side more than the other.

"Don't frighten me like that, _lethallan_," Merrill sighed. She leaned against a headless statue of Ghilan'nain, her hand resting on her chest as she caught her breath. Her black hair was cut to her shoulders, riddled with braids, and tucked behind her ears. Her hazel-green eyes opened as she stood straight, staring at the younger elf. "Are you sure you should be jumping around like that?"

"I feel fine. _Garas_. Let's find Tamlen."

"Of course."

* * *

><p>The elves walked through the forest in near-silence. Emma would glance over her shoulder at each snapping twig or whisper of discomfort that the mage let loose. Merrill grinned sheepishly when she did; she was no hunter and though she walked quieter than any <em>shem<em> she was clumsy as a bear when compared to the men and women who ghosted through the trees since their days as fledglings, light as air and seeming as swift as an arrow. Emma, she knew, was one of the best despite her youth. Yet she did not seem to realize it.

Merrill was paying too much attention to where she was placing her feet and failed to notice that the girl had stopped in front of her; she knocked her forehead into the back of the shorter girl's head. She frowned, muttering curses as she rubbed the sore spot with the tips of her fingers.

Emma's bow was raised, the string drawn back, the fletching brushing against the corner of her mouth. She drew a breath and held it for a moment. Then she sighted and let it fly. It hit its mark - the head of a creature unlike anything either elf had ever seen before. Its companions howled as they drew weapons of their own and rushed towards the pair. Merrill stepped back, her hands shaking, stumbling over the hem of her robe as the ground sloped up behind her. Her eyes were wide with fear.

Emma stepped in front of her friend, her titian eyes glinting in the light. Her body moved without thought - choosing an arrow, nocking it, drawing, sighting, holding her breath for a second to steady herself, loosing and repeating the process; it was second nature for her. Four more arrows left the Dalish longbow, each aimed at a different creature, landing with a meaty smack that caused the thing to stop moving.

An eerie calm settled over the surrounding forest as the last of the creatures fell.

Merrill stood and brushed the dirt from her clothes to hide her embarrassment. It didn't work; her shoulders trembled and her cheeks were flaming. She tucked her hair behind her ears again, tightened her grip on the staff she had dropped earlier - perhaps when she bumped into Emma or perhaps as she fell over her own feet - and squeaked as the she-elf reached out to touch one of the strange creatures. It took a moment for her to gather the courage to move forward.

"_Lethallan!_"

Emma glanced up, her bow resting on the ground beside her, one hand still trailing the cracked leather armor. Her eyes grew wide. She did not have time to use her longbow nor the space for it as the creature surged forward, blade swinging, a wicked smile lighting its ashen face.

There was a flash of light. Heat brushed past her cheek and left the creature - taller than the others, with longer limbs and slimmer shoulders - burning as it fell to its knees.

"Are you alright, _da'len_," Merrill asked, tugging the girl to her feet. She checked her quickly for injuries and, after finding none, stepped quickly around the vile beasts. She could not stand the sight of them and the stench made her gag.

"_Ma serannas_, Merrill. I'm fine if a little shaky. What are these things?"

She reached down again. Her hand brushed against a scaly brow dry as summer earth. She thought it odd - from a distance the skin appeared slick and overly moist. The leather armor that each creature wore was faded, cracked, ill-fitting, covered in layers of dirt and dried black blood; it was so worn that the material was supple beneath her fingers. The blades were haggard and crude. Their eyes were glazed over in death, a pale grey in color with dark pupils that made them appear ghostly. They smiled, sharp teeth coming to fine points in their too-wide and thin-lipped mouths. They smelled of death and decay, blood both fresh and old.

"Darkspawn? Keeper Marethari said the Grey Warden was looking for them. Please, _da'len_, don't touch them."

"Oh, quit calling me that," Emma said with a click of her tongue. She stood and passed the elf, kneeling beside a scattered fire pit near the first dead creature. The ash was dark grey; blackened wood still willing to burn if coaxed with a flint and gentle breath sat in the center. "I'm not much younger than you, you know."

"Is this the camp of those monsters?"

"I think not. The fire has not been lit for a day at least, and from the smell of them they prefer their meat raw."

"_Lethallan_!" Merrill covered her mouth and nose as she fought a wave of nausea. "How can you say such things?"

Emma looked over her shoulder at the trail of bodies. White-shafted arrows stuck up from them, some with broken ends and some whole with two green stripes just before the fletching began; she had always marked her arrows such.

"They are not creatures of a natural origin, _lethallan_," she sighed. "There is a wrongness to them, an aura of disease and despair. Killing them is a mercy."

The mage was quiet. Emma did not kill lightly; she urged the other hunters to warn humans away from the clan with words rather than actions; she prayed an entire day when she came back from a hunt for the soul of whatever beast she had slain; to say killing was a mercy ... Merrill was unused to the words leaving the younger elf's lips in the same sentence. Yet she knew also that the girl had a sense for such things - something buried deep in her subconscious that warned her when there was danger and whispered to her of which actions to follow.

"Perhaps it is the _shemlen's_ then." Merrill pushed a rock with her toe. "He was looking for your cave."

"It is not my cave," she answered with a pout. She crossed her arms childishly and marched forward, paying hardly any attention to where she stomped her feet now.

* * *

><p>There were more darkspawn within the ruins and the two elves easily dispatched them, arrows and spells flying through the air. The foul creatures were never able to reach the pair with their swords and shields and daggers. The only trouble they faced was their last foe - a stoutly built, spike-covered-armor, staff wielding, wildly grinning monster who flung spells back at Merrill. Her spells were useless against the invisible shield; Emma's arrows ricocheted off and skittered along the walls and floor. She stepped closer, her glinting arrowhead searching the force field around the darkspawn for a weakness - all magic had a point where it would fail if pressed hard enough..<p>

There, she thought as the creature flinched. She released her hold on the arrow in the same breath.

Merrill heaved a sigh and leaned against a statue. Emma frowned. It was the same statue that had been there before, appearing after she and Tamlen passed through a door that they'd somehow missed the first time through. She did not like this cave; it seemed to change when one wasn't looking.

She turned and walked through the door, shoulders tensing as she half-expected another burst of poisonous air. Nothing came.

An armored man stood before the mirror, sword and dagger in hand, rubbing his chin in thought. He turned at the sound of the elves' footsteps. His dark brown hair was slicked back save for a few stubborn strands; his chocolate eyes searched them up and down, taking in the bloodied armor of the smaller one. He smiled as he recognized her. "You're the elf I found in the forest. It is good to see you well. I hope you're not injured after fighting your way here." He frowned suddenly. "Your Keeper did not send you after me, I hope. I told her I would be fine."

"We're looki-"

"You heard us fighting and did not come to aid us," Merrill asked in disbelief.

The _shemlen_ shrugged his shoulders and motioned to the room around him. He sheathed both weapons. "I was otherwise occupied. You'll notice not all the kills are yours."

He was right. There was a circle of bodies around him - darkspawn of the short and tall variety. Emma pointed to the shorter ones. "What are these?"

"Darkspawn. Did your Keepe-"

"No, I mean," she paused to think of how to word the question. "These ones are short. These are tall. They look the same but then they look different. What are they?"

"Ah. I will answer your questions, but at your camp. It is time we leave these ruins. But first …" He turned and stepped closer to the mirror, drawing his sword in the same movement; he tightened his grip on it and swung. The mirror shattered, falling like ice to the pedestal as it glittered and reflected the light streaming from the cracks in the ceiling. Merrill cried out too late.

"Come. Let us leave."

"No!" Emma's fists were clenched at her sides, her voice louder than the Keeper's First had ever heard. "I came here to find Tamlen and I'm not leaving without him. He was stupid enough to touch that thing and then he disappeared and I woke up back in the camp and … I'm not leaving without him! I can't."

She sank down to her knees, holding her arms tight, shoulders trembling, tears gathering in her eyes. "It's my fault," she whispered so quietly that neither could hear her.

The Grey Warden sighed and knelt next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. She dreaded what he was going to say; she already knew: Tamlen was not here. It had taken two days for her to wake - two days she remembered nothing of, two days spent in the darkness that came from the mirror, two days of the Keeper's healing abilities. Tamlen could not be saved if he had suffered the same. She could not stop the tears from falling.

"I am sorry," the man said quietly. "But you will not find your friend. We must go. You are still sick whether you feel it or not; I am afraid your Keeper's magic did not cure you but only gave you a moment's respite."

The three left the cave and ruins in silence, lost in their own thoughts. None of them spoke until they reached the Dalish camp. The Grey Warden separated and spoke with Keeper Marethari at her _aravel_; Merrill continued in helping others pack and stopped for a moment to ask something of Hahren Paivel; Emma followed the distant sounds of a bowstring to the small firing range that had been set up on the eastern edge of the clearing. She watched with disinterest, fingers playing with the feathers of an arrow she'd stuck in the ground.

Master Ilen cleared his throat. She glanced up, moving her head only slightly and staring through the pieces of hair that framed her face no matter how many times she brushed them back.

"Since your hands seek work while your mind wanders," the craftsman began, his white head bobbing, "perhaps you would not mind doing the task now that I would have given you had you shown up two days ago."

She moved to stand but paused when the elder elf waved his hand. He laid a bundle at her feet. "Arrows." She unrolled the bundle and set about sorting the feathers and shafts and arrowheads, glue and thin string and a sharp knife among her tools. It was here that Keeper Marethari and the Grey Warden found her.

She held the knife between her teeth, lips curled carefully to avoid drawing blood; the fingers of her right hand were welted from pressing the dull iron into carved notches while the fingers of her left hand were tacky with glue and had strings wrapped around them. She had finished the first pile Ilen brought her and gone back to the craftsman for a second which he supplied her with. She'd watched Junar as he taught the city elf that had recently joined them how to properly hold a bow and draw the string back. His form had already improved in the hour she'd been there.

"_Da'len_." Emma looked up, fingers still working, russet eyes shifting between the two. "This is Duncan," the Keeper continued. "He is a Grey Warden."

"He didn't answer my question."

She started and cast a glance at the taller man. He shrugged and shook his head - he did not recall what question he was to answer. His sword and dagger moved on his back, clinking against the metal plates that covered his shoulders.

"The short ones and the tall ones," Emma explained. "They're both darkspawn but they're different. And there was one that used magic too. What are they all?"

Duncan sighed. "The smaller are genlock, the taller hurlock and those able to use magic are emissaries. There are others as well but I do not see how this is important."

"Emma Da'len, Duncan has told you that you still are sick, hasn't he?" She nodded. "All the magic I know has not been enough to save you and I fear that no matter how many more times I would try, I would not be able to help you any more than I already have. Duncan has told me of a cure for you."

"Great," Emma said with a smile. She finished the last arrow and gathered them into a bundle, wrapping a leather strap around the whole thing, and stood. She had paused during her work to tie an extra feather in her hair and it fluttered near her face as a gust of wind rushed through the Dalish camp. "Where can we find it?"

"With ... the Grey Wardens," Marethari answered slowly, her eyes full of worry, her hands clasped tightly together to resist reaching out to the girl; she would not ever let her go if she did.

The arrows slipped from her hands as she realized what had been said. Her eyes widened and her lower lip quivered as moisture gathered again to threaten tears. "Is the clan sending me away, Keeper," she whispered.

"Yes."

There was another brush of wind that seemed to steal the words from both elves and they stood, fighting their rising emotions. Duncan remained silent; it was not his place to speak. He was a stranger, after all, and the one who would be taking the young Dalish away from all she knew.

Marethari took a deep breath.

"I have already spoken to Ashalle and she agreed: you must go with Duncan. It breaks my heart to send away a daughter of our clan, as it would to watch you die slowly."

"Am I to be a Grey Warden?"

"Yes, _da'len_. Long ago the Dalish made a treaty with the Wardens that we would offer aid during a Blight. You must join them now. This is your duty. And your salvation."

Emma did not answer but knelt to gather the scattered arrows; she turned on her heel and walked quickly away. She had to go, she knew. If that was what the Creators willed she would not be one to disobey; yet she did not want to go. She often wandered from the clan, risking discovery at the edges of towns and villages; when she was younger she had even befriended _shemlen_ children to learn of their ways. Her curiosity had not waned but grown stronger as her elders continued to urge her away from them. She always wandered away but this would be different. This time she would not be able to return.

She paused at Master Ilen's _aravel_ and left the arrows on one of many now-empty crafting tables. Then she turned around and went back to where she had left the two - the wind blowing between her past and future.

She simply nodded her consent and smiled.

The clan had gathered together near the main fire, some with wet eyes, some avoiding her bright gaze. They shuffled their feet, hunched their shoulders, ducked their heads. Emma smiled at each of them as she passed. Some would reach out and pat her cheek or brush her hand in a comforting gesture, though no comfort was found by any of them. She stopped in front of Ashalle; the mother figure of the red-headed elf was crying.

"You are so brave," Ashalle whispered through her tears. Her hands fumbled between the girl's cheeks and the loose hair at her face. She tried to match the wide and carefree grin but had to hold back a sob. "So brave to smile as you face the unknown."

Emma did not voice what she was thinking: I smile because I do not want to cry. She took her guardian's hands in her own, brushing stray grey hair behind her ears. The woman's tears fell faster from hazel brown eyes and she found she could not meet the younger elf's gaze. For all the smiling, she knew it was not sincere.

"I'll be fine, Ashalle," Emma soothed. "I travel with a Grey Warden to an army camp. Nothing will be able to threaten me. And when I am well - when this is all over - I'll find you again. I promise."

Ashalle nodded and wrapped her in a hug. She set something in the she-elf's hand before letting go, keeping her fingers enclosed around it.

"_Dareth shiral, emm'asha_."

"_Ma'arlath_."

Emma turned quickly and left, her hand brushing the Keeper's as she passed though she did not slow. If she did she feared the tears would force their way out and she would be unable to move. Leaving the clan was the worst thing she could think of; to leave them while they mourned the loss of one of their own - Tamlen, who had always been there for her, who had been the best friend she could have asked for, who had covered for her wanderings since they were fledglings, Tamlen, who she loved more than anything - made her heart ache all the more.

Duncan matched her shorter steps easily as she reached him. He gave only a small nod as condolence and approval. Emma kept the smile on her face for a moment longer before growing somber as they passed the last _aravel_.

She did not look back.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note:<em>

_da'lenen: 'en' is a suffix indicating plural _

_dareth shiral, emm'asha: safe journey, my girl_

_ma'arlath: I love you_


	3. Chapter 3: Ostagar

They could see the towers of the old fortress long before they reached it, the stone stretching up to the sky as though trying to touch the clouds and stars. The fires kept a warm glow about the place that turned to dancing shadows in the night, sparks escaping in pillars of smoke.

They passed through the main gate a few hours after dawn the next day and the Dalish elf's eyes grew wide. She had never seen such a vast structure; it looked as though it could span on as wide as the forest she had called home. Even the gate was wide, seeming unnecessarily large, great trunks of trees lashed together with rope and leather and adorned with dull spikes. It took two men to open one side of the gate; two more stood nearby, no doubt to offer assistance should both gates need to swing inward.

Mahariel caught a familiar scent as Duncan led the way into an ample yard that looked over stone balconies. She ran her hand through a patch of plants. It was easy to find the fern-like leaves with black-and-grey florets at the top of the stalks among all the grasses. She smiled as Duncan cast a glance over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised in question. He had given the same look each time the elf dug in her bag for a book where she pressed all the herbs and flowers she'd collected on their journey. He was sure it must be full to bursting by now; she never passed by elfroot or deathroot - and even a few that the Warden didn't know by name - without taking a piece of the plant. He had yet to mention that such collections were unnecessary as the army - and the Grey Wardens - had others to do that.

She sprinted up to him, keeping pace with his tired strides, hands clasped behind her back, bumping against the lower limb of her longbow with each step. She leaned forward and looked up at him. His cocoa face was weary; she thought there were more lines now than when they had set out. She'd drawn breath to ask a question; Duncan had sighed and rubbed at his thick beard. She swallowed her breath with a slight squeak, her lips in a pout, red eyes roving their surroundings.

Yet the Grey Warden had grown accustomed to the elf's endless inquiries of a world much more vast than the one she had left. He took her curiosity as a good thing - far better to annoy him with questioning than to try and leave him only to die. He waited for the girl to speak, grew impatient and broke the silence between them himself.

"What?"

"What," she asked, looking up at him again.

"That's what I want to know: what?"

"But I didn't say anything."

"You were beginning to and stopped. What were you going to say?"

"Oh." She frowned as she thought back, counting off questions she had already asked him, walking with her eyes closed. "I don't remember."

Duncan sighed again as she beamed up at him. He noted that her smile did not crinkle her nose. He mused to himself that most of her smiles on their way to Ostagar had been false just as this one was. He couldn't think of why she smiled when she often looked so close to tears.

"Careful now."

He looked over at the familiar light laughter. The small Dalish elf was rubbing her forehead with a frown, staring at the gold-plated chest of the king of Fereldan. Cailan Theirin stood in full armor, the sun shining off him as though he were a second, less bright but no less dazzling source of light.

"Your Majesty," Duncan said, offering a salute - arms crossed over his chest and a slight bow from the waist. "I did not think to see you here. I wasn't expecting -"

"A royal welcome? Of course, Duncan. I was beginning to worry you'd miss the battle entirely."

"Certainly not, your Majesty."

"Good. Then I'll have the mighty Duncan by my side." Duncan seemed to stiffen as the king stood beside him, their shoulders nearly touching. Mahariel watched from the corner of her eye though her attention was on the vast Korcari Wilds below the massive fortress. She stepped forward slowly.

Someone … was singing.

She could hear the voice, far off and close all at once, beautiful and mesmerizing, and the song filled her with longing. It was not a longing to return to her clan nor to the way things had been before finding the cave; it was deeper than that. Her heart ached in a way she had never known as the song called to her. She was standing on the edge of the bridge now, leaning dangerously over the void below. The wind that blew from the Wilds brushed her hair away from her face; she shivered.

Duncan's eyes grew wide and his jaw hardened as he saw it - the light sheen of sweat that covered her forehead, the way she struggled to breathe, the glossy look in her eyes. He could hear the voice as well; it was how he knew the darkspawn horde to the south was truly a Blight. But the song of the archdemon did not affect him so. He had mastered the taint. He controlled it within his blood.

"Mahariel," he said quietly as the elf stepped even closer to the edge. Cailan and his men had grown silent, watching with worry and interest. She cocked her head at his voice but did not look over. "Come down from there. Come away to safety."

She chuckled half-heartedly and spun, ending in a crouch on the thin ledge of the bridge. Her braid mimicked her movement like a partner in a dance just one beat behind. She was silent for a moment, russet eyes staring at them. Duncan frowned. She looked normal. But he couldn't have imagined it. Could he have?

Cailan grew uncomfortable beneath the steady gaze and shifted his weight.

"_Emma solas elvhen dalish_. It's not like I was going to jump."

She stood quickly and crossed to Duncan, trailing her hand through another patch of plants and bringing out what looked like a handful of daisies. The darker skinned man shook his head as she pressed the flowers into her book. Cailan hid a laugh with a cough.

"I'd heard you'd found a promising new recruit. I take it this is she?"

"Yes," Duncan inclined his head. "Allow me to introduce you, your Majesty."

"There's no need to be so formal, Duncan." The king stepped forward, his smile growing wider as the elf tried to be taller by standing on the balls of her feet. "Ho there, friend." She nearly lost her balance but righted herself, hands on hips. "Might I know your name?"

"Emma Mahariel, your Majesty."

"You're Dalish, are you not? I've heard your people possess great skill with a bow."

"My clan is the best," she nodded. "All the stories say so."

"And what of you, Warden Mahariel?" She frowned; she was not yet a Grey Warden and should not be addressed as such. "Are you skilled in archery?"

"I am the youngest hunter in the clan so … yes. But there are things I am unskilled in as well. Is your armor -"

"Knowing when to be silent," Duncan interrupted, "is one of them."

She glanced sideways, her cheeks flushing, and flattened her feet; she shrunk a few inches and barely stood to Cailan's chest. Duncan realized now why she had been rubbing her forehead earlier - she'd walked into the golden breastplate of the king. His lips twitched in a smile that he forced away and he turned his attention to the blonde man.

"Your uncle says his forces could be here within the week, your Majesty."

Cailan laughed. "Eamon just wants in on the glory."

The Dalish elf ignored the men's chatter and instead took in her surroundings. They had just left the courtyard of a tall tower and a grouping of balconies that stared into the vast Korcari Wilds. The stone pillars and archways were beginning to crumble; some decorative buttresses had already fallen away, giving the bridge they now crossed an uneven look. Large chunks were missing and the humans pressed to the far side of the bridge. Emma herself passed over loose blocks of stone; they remained still under her weight. The bridge sloped up to another courtyard though the view was blocked by two pillars which supported a small roof. The elf's curiosity made her fingers twitch and she ghosted past the soldiers in front of her to stare.

There was another tower up a set of stairs that had been roughly chipped away to create a ramp; its top had fallen long ago and what remained of the wooden floor inside could be seen growing moss. There was an archery range with soldiers practicing. She frowned. The targets were all set up at the same distance and the same height, whereas any target one faced in reality would almost always be moving. A group was gathered around one man who knelt beside a corpse; she pressed between the bodies to stand at the front.

"Take a close look, men," he was saying. "This here is called a -"

"Genlock," she whispered. Some of the soldiers glanced down at her.

But she was already gone, a flash of red in the morning light. She paused at another group of men and women and listened to the prayers being uttered by them and loudly proclaimed by the woman who stood on a podium. She was standing by Templars in the next five minutes, watching as mages cast practice spells at straw-stuffed dummies; she wondered if Keeper Marethari moved in the same manner when she used magic. Then she was staring in wide-eyed delight at a kennel of dogs. She'd never seen anything like them before. They were strong and powerful, with barreled chests and snubbed tails and jaws full of sharp teeth; she thought that one chomp could break her arm or leg, and that she was glad they would be fighting beside her. She'd already stopped the kennel master to ask about petting one.

"Pet … a mabari," he asked in slack-jawed disbelief. "No one's ever asked to pet a mabari before - it's just not done! They aren't lap dogs. They're not to be coddled. Not to mention that there isn't one that would let you get close I bet."

He had been wrong.

She was balancing on a fence post, her bow in hand with one end stuck in the ground to lean against it and help her keep her footing. She watched in silence, smiling when one dog approached. She never reached out. She simply sat.

It was here that Daveth found her though he hadn't been looking. She was stepping lightly along the fence railing. Her bow was in its place and she'd shifted her quiver further onto her back to avoid its clunking against the wood. A single mabari was in the pen, facing away, still painted with kaddis. It seemed to be staring at nothing.

"What are you doing?"

The elf and dog jumped, turning simultaneously. The girl fell backwards into the pen with a yelp while the war hound barked in an almost mocking way, though it did not attack her for invading its territory. She sat up, readjusted her quiver, and rubbed her back. Daveth chuckled as she squinted at him with one eye closed.

"You ruined it," she pouted.

"I'd get out of there if I were you." He smiled widely and leaned against the fence on his elbows. His dark hair was cropped short to his head and his jaw was covered in rough whiskers; his chin was nearly clean shaven with just a small patch of hair under his lip. His light hazel eyes were laughing even if he wasn't. "Mabari are notoriously defensive animals. He'll eat you in one bite if you stick around."

"Ah, no he won't." She cooed and scratched the pale brown dog behind the ear. "We were playing a game. Weren't we?"

He barked conversationally.

"You any good with that bow," the man asked.

The Dalish elf was quiet for a moment, her eyes half-closed as she tucked loose hair behind her ears. She was contemplating cutting it as she'd done so often before when it reached the same length - too long to stay out of her eyes yet too short to reach her braid. Moving her hair showed off her tattoo and Daveth took a sharp breath in.

"So you're the third recruit," he mused.

"There you are." They both turned at the voice. Duncan was strolling up to them. Another man accompanied him, dressed in red steel platemail, sword and shield strapped to his back and a dagger resting at his hip, looking bored. His blue eyes roamed the camp lazily; he ran a hand through messy dark brown shoulder-length hair.

"I'm glad you haven't managed to get yourself into trouble."

The elf crossed her arms and frowned. "That was one time and I -"

"Daveth, go find Ser Jory and meet me at my tent. Mahariel, find Alistair. Last I heard he'd been sent to talk to the mages. Maker help us," he muttered as he walked away. The younger man went with him.

The pair stood for a moment longer then, almost as if on cue, began moving. Mahariel climbed over the short fence as Daveth waited. They walked together for a time. She kept up a steady flow of questions - where was he from, how did he get recruited to the Grey Wardens, was he any good with a bow, was it easy to fight with two blades, how long had he been at Ostagar, did he like Duncan, who was Alistair - and Daveth answered each one with ease. He stopped at a space between two ramps.

"I saw the Warden go that way," he pointed ahead. "Ser Knight is over with the sister, praying. I'll see you soon."

She smiled.

It wasn't long after he'd left that another voice called to her as she passed by.

"You there, elf, where's my armor?" She glanced around, making a show of spinning to look for an elf, then she pointed to herself. "Yes, you," the man said in something akin to disgust. "Go fetch it quickly." He turned back to the conversation he'd been having, his voice rough from lack of sleep and barking commands at any elf that passed. She didn't move. He stood from the bench he occupied with three others. He was taller than the elf by two heads but she did not falter as he stepped closer; she had faced something much more terrifying in the cave with Tamlen.

"Didn't you hear me, elf," he snapped. "Go fetch my armor from the smith. Should 'ave been 'ere an hour ago but you knife-ears are all useless."

Still she did not move.

The man grabbed at her; he could only get a grip on the necklace she wore as her chestpiece was leather armor and well-fitted. She moved quickly, her hand flashing to her quiver. The arrowhead glinted red in the sunlight. A mage stormed past, glowering and inattentive to his surroundings. A line seeped across the back of the soldier's hand and his eyes grew wide with anger and, perhaps, fear.

"You …" His grip loosened and the elf stepped back, putting a hand to her necklace to check for damage. It was still intact and she half-smiled in relief. "Bitch!"

She stumbled at the backhanded blow. Her cheek was a smear of red and there was a split in her lip from the force. She wiped at it. The man was advancing again, the others behind him.

"Not another step, _shem_," she hissed. They hadn't seen her move but the longbow was in her hand, an arrow nocked to the string and the fletching anchored at the corner of her mouth. The wind picked up then, tossing her hair around her face.

One of them paused. "Dalish."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Gots to be a Dalish," a third muttered. "Know any other elves tha' paint their face 'ike tha' 'cause I don'."

"What would a Dalish elf be doing here?"

"Maybe," a new voice said slowly from behind the elf. She was tempted to turn, to train her bow on the new threat.

But there are more _shem_ in front of me, she thought. She wasn't planning to fight. An arrow in the side of their boots would stall them long enough for her to find safety behind Duncan's broad back. He could convince them away. He was intimidating and held sway with the soldiers as Warden-Commander in Fereldan.

"Just maybe," the voice continued as its owner stepped even with her, his splintmail worn with just enough dings to prove he'd done battle and was not easily fallen. "She's here to join the Grey Wardens. That might be just a little far-fetched though. I don't know. I may have mistaken her for another Dalish elf - have you seen one wandering around? No? Hmm. Well, I guess I can always ask Duncan. Come on."

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her away - disregarding the readied bow and the four soldiers. They walked quickly without looking back. She took twice as many steps to keep up with his long strides, which slowed only when they had to wind their way into the crowd praying at the podium. He stopped suddenly, dropped her wrist, and spun.

"What were you thinking? Every elf in camp knows to stay away from that lot. They're nothing but trouble." He sighed, rubbed his temples and carried the motion through to his dirty-blonde hair; it stood up in the front and she could imagine him doing it often. His brown eyes were watching over her head to make sure they hadn't been followed. He looked familiar though she couldn't think of how she would know him.

"Thank you," she said suddenly. "You didn't have to step in yet you did so … thank you."

His cheeks flushed and he mumbled a reply that the girl didn't quite catch. He cleared his throat, glanced over her head again and looked down at her. "You know, one good thing about the Blight is how it brings people together. I mean, look at us. Mages and Templars and soldiers and knights and Grey Wardens and elves all in the same place and not trying to kill each other. Most of the time." He frowned. "You've a … a little blood there."

She chuckled derisively. "It isn't mine."

"Who's …" His frowned deepened and his brows drew down into a deep V. "Why attack him? Duncan said you'd cause trouble but I didn't think …"

"I did not attack him!"

The soldiers stared at the small elf in their midst, frowning and hushing her; the Chantry sister had stopped mid-sentence and began anew at the beginning. The man flushed again, hands in front of him as though to ward off an attacking animal. He took half a step back. His eyes were apologetic and urged her to be silent. She didn't receive the message.

"He was mishandling something very important to me so I **made** him let it go. Maybe I drew a little blood in the process but who cares. He was ordering me about like a servant and I'm no flat-ear you know. I am a proud Dalish hunter and I'll not follow the orders of any _shemlen_ even if he is a king. Furthermore, I didn't plan to -"

A hand clamped over her mouth from behind. The soldiers were staring at her again, shoulders tense and hands gripping their weapons. She tried to pry the fingers from her mouth to no avail. She watched the man in front of her for a moment; he wasn't surprised nor did he seem worried and he even smiled sheepishly.

"Are you two finished causing contention?" The young woman nodded - as well as she could beneath Duncan's grip. "I send you on a simple task and you come back bloody and yelling. And Alistair. I've had a complaint about you from the mages."

"I … I apologize, Duncan."

"Good." He lowered his hand and led them through the rest of the crowd in silence. Daveth beamed as he caught sight of the fiery and inquisitive elf; he liked her. With her around he wasn't the only one who spoke his mind without care of consequence. And perhaps, he thought, she'd be willing to teach me some skills in archery. To Daveth's left stood another man, slightly shorter and stouter with balding dark ruddy hair, chin covered in close-cropped whiskers, simple chainmail armor embellished only with a greatsword sheathed on his back. Duncan's earlier companion stood away from the two nearer to the fire.

"Alistair, you know Daveth and Jory," Duncan said as the Grey Wardens settled in front of the recruits. "This is Mahariel. And this -" he motioned at the man "- is Allen Cousland."

"My lord Cousland," Jory exclaimed, standing a little taller.

"He will be accompanying you into the Wilds. You are to collect three vials of darkspawn blood for the Joining. As well, I need you to …"

His voice faded as Mahariel's attention turned to the gate. It was guarded by a pair of soldiers and their imprinted mabari, and had opened only once that day to allow a group of Ash Warriors through. The Warden-Commander would not have cared for the elf's distraction save that she was already walking towards it. Her steps were small and uneven as she frowned. He motioned for the others to stay as they were then crossed the open yard. His was one of the last tents before the gate.

She was standing still, staring up over the carved pikes of the gate to even taller trees and the steel-blue sky of roiling clouds.

"I thought I saw Tamlen," she whispered. There was indeed an elf jogging away, blonde hair and slim build in a light leather jerkin. He would be one to aid with the signals in the coming battle.

Duncan looked down at her. Her shoulders were trembling as she wrapped her arms around herself. Her eyes were misty and threatened tears - as they often had at the slightest reminder of her clanmate - yet he knew already that the young woman would not let them fall. He sighed.

"You have lost much in such a short time. You are allowed to grieve if you wish. I would expect it, even. Please, don't forget to take care of yourself." She glanced up, angling her head so that her hair fell away, red eyes beneath thick lashes. "I have known too many good men who worried too much about those they travelled with. They forgot that they were just as important and perhaps more so as they were the voice of reason. They saw to the safety and well-being of every man that accompanied them, yet they did not do the same for themselves.

"You have greatness is you. It will lead you far beyond what you think yourself capable of, and you will lead others. But you must remember to look after your own soul and heart. Cry, if you must. Scream, if you must. Be angry; be sad; be scared; be happy. Just care for yourself as much as I know you'll care for others. Please, Mahariel."

They were silent.

The Dalish elf rubbed her cheek and then touched her lip. It was sore but she smiled anyway, her nose crinkling and her eyes lively. "It's Emma."

"What?" He was thrown off by the sincerity in her face and by the youth he saw there. He had never stopped to ask how old she was. Perhaps if he had, he would have left her with her clan. But that, he thought, would kill her.

"You keep calling me Mahariel like it's my name. My name is Emma."

He nodded.

"Duncan? _Ma_ _serannas_ - thank you."

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note:<em>

_emma solas elvhen dalish: I am a proud Dalish elf._


	4. Chapter 4: The Bloody Wilds

The five had set out well after noon, the guard at the gate warning them to hurry back. "The Wilds aren't safe at night, even for a Grey Warden." He'd been right. Emma had seen more dead bodies in two hours than she had her entire life. She was beginning to doubt whether being a Warden was worth anything if so many still died. The only survivor they came across was still bleeding from a stomach wound, his armor rent nearly in two, still crawling toward the king's camp.

"Who … Grey Warden?" He looked up. One eye was swollen shut and the other opened only to a slit. The Dalish elf knelt beside him. "Have to … get back."

"Leave him. We don't have time for this."

"Let's take him back to camp."

They spoke at the same time, their words stepping over each other. They both frowned. It was Allen's voice that the accompanying Warden heard.

"Don't have time," Alistair asked incredulously.

"Duncan gave us a task, it doesn't involve this, and I'd rather not spend the night in this filthy marsh of a forest without a tent or food."

Jory was nodding his head in agreement. The trees seemed more than ominous to him. They looked to be pressing further in, covering the sky over the narrow twisting path they followed with each passing minute. He thought he'd even seen rats and other skittering creatures get swallowed up by the ground itself. On top of the dangers of the scarcely mapped land was the darkspawn horde. He knew they were out there somewhere and he was not overly fond of the idea of meeting them. For now the slightly built Dalish warrior had steered them clear - whether by luck or skill he didn't know.

"Alistair, do you have bandages," she asked and the knight noted, not for the first time, that her words carried a burr and cadence he'd never heard before.

"In my pack." He knelt and opened the sturdy bag, pulling out a roll of bright white linen.

"You keep heading in," she said as she eased the man onto his back. "I'll take the soldier to a healer and meet up with you again."

"Forget it," Allen snapped.

Alistair glared at him. He had not expected a Cousland to be so uncaring and … heartless. He'd always heard they were a dutiful, honest, compassionate family. But there's always a black sheep, I suppose, he thought. He turned his attention to the elf.

"That's a four hour trek there and back to this spot. Don't you think it's a little far? How would you find us again - what if we take a wrong turn and get lost?"

"With you leading I don't think you'll get far at all. Probably walk into a bog and spend the next four hours pulling each other out."

He laughed. "True, true. Then I wouldn't have pants again."

"What -"

"He's a dead man anyway," the dark-haired noble muttered. "Let's go."

"He's only a dead man when fools like you do nothing."

"'Foo-" Allen didn't finish the word as he reached down and made a grab for the elf. She avoided it, deftly flipping upside-down onto one hand and landing on her feet again with a challenging smile. "I am no fool, you filthy knife-ear!"

There was silence. It seemed the whole of the Korcari Wilds held its breath, quivering anxiously on the edges to see what the Dalish would do. The men had all heard tales of a human dying - stuck full of arrows like a pincushion - for much gentler words in a much less threatening tone of voice.

"What did you call me," she whispered. She was eerily calm, Alistair thought, staring up through thick lashes, eyes glinting like crimson blood, face framed in a red halo as the sun broke through shifting clouds overhead.

Don't say it again, Daveth pleaded in his mind. She's giving you a chance. Fix it.

Allen stepped closer to the girl. "Filthy." Another step. "Knife." One more step and they were glaring at each other, close to touching. "Ear."

She growled deep in her throat much like the wolves they had faced earlier, lip curling in anger. She could do nothing, she knew. All her life she had been denying and proving wrong tales of Dalish brutality; her people could show humanity and mercy, too. If she reacted now to this one man's taunts she would set in the on-lookers' minds an image of savage anger and blood and mindless killing. She stood with white-knuckled fists, whole body trembling in anger. Then she turned on her heel and stomped away; her braid whipped behind her.

"Are all Dalish so willing to roll over? It's no wonder the elves fell twice."

"_Len'alas lath'din_!"

Her voice echoed through a ruined dome nearby. Her words were unknown to the four men yet her tone made it clear is was an insult. Alistair didn't know what to do, what to say, to make peace between the human and the elf. Had they been mages sparks would be flying between them; he was sure of it. Mahariel leaned against the ruins, Daveth trying to talk her down, his smile uneasy. Alistair turned to Allen.

"Why would you say something like that," he asked.

"It **was** uncalled for, my lord," Jory added quietly. "She's impressed Duncan enough to be here. I would not want to make an enemy of her."

"I suggest we not make enemies with anyone who might save our kingdom from a little-understood threat like the Blight. Apologize to her."

Allen groaned and brushed his hair away from his face. He should. He'd gone too far without thinking. He was angry and unwilling to admit his fear. Angry at his father for not allowing him to join their soldiers in the king's service; he was only at Ostagar to watch, and leaving before the battle. Angry at Duncan for waving the Grey Wardens in front of him and not asking him to join. Fearful for his older brother in the Wilds; fearful for the coming battle and his brother's role in it. He wanted to stay, fight beside Fergus and all the others he had grown up with. Yet he should not have taken his anger out on the elf. She'd done nothing wrong, after all.

Before he could say anything there was a shout of surprise.

Daveth stumbled over his feet, fumbling for the blades on his back as the creatures swarmed from within the ruin. The small figure beside him did not hesitate. Her hands moved rapidly, nothing more than a blur, and seven of the creatures dropped. The last was too close. It swung a heavy maul in an underhand arc and the elf was lifted off her feet a few inches and thrown back. Daveth took a defensive position in front of her but the other three men knew there was nothing he could do against the darkspawn. He dodged the overhand. They raced forward, palming their swords and shields.

Alistair was the first to reach the hurlock. He bombarded it with three staggering blows from his shield then, as the beast was recovering, drew his sword up and across. Its head rolled on the soggy earth, its body crumpled, blood gushed from its neck, and Alistair walked away calmly.

"Are those … darkspawn," Jory asked. He was reluctant to sheath his broadsword though he was certain all the darkspawn were dead. He did not doubt the Dalish's aim, he simply was comforted by the sturdy steel in his hands.

"Yes," came the grim answer. The Warden was pressing gently into the already bruising skin of the still girl.

"Is she …" Daveth couldn't finish the thought and swallowed hard past the lump in his throat.

Allen's jaw tightened. Elves weren't built as thick-boned as humans nor were they as tall or heavily muscled. A strike like that could crack the chest of an armored man, and she was running around in a simple leather top and skirt. If she wasn't dead she was most certainly badly broken.

"You two," Alistair said, glancing up. "Fill those vials with blood. Allen … my lord, would you -"

He nodded abruptly and took the third vial from the older man's pack. He, Daveth, and Jory knelt around the beheaded darkspawn, gathered their courage, took steadying breaths, and plunged the glass tubes into the streaming blood. It was warm. Jory jerked his hand back. Allen had to force himself not to do likewise. Daveth seemed the only one used to the feel of blood on his skin. Allen thought it must have something to do with his being a rogue, then amended his assessment, recalling that the often flirtatious and easily amused man had grown up nearby. Hunting would have been an essential part of life.

Alistair had Emma on her feet by the time they corked the bottles. She was breathing shallowly and rapidly, arms wrapped around her torso, staring at the ground through slitted eyes.

"You can go back now if you like," Alistair said, a hand near her elbow. "We've the blood. All we need is to find those treaties but I'm sure the four of us could manage that small task. And Duncan would understand."

"What? No." She shook her head, straightened her shoulders. She put her hands on her hips and faked a smile, letting out a deep breath of air. "You'd get lost without me and … end up without pants. What does that mean?"

"Long story," Alistair shrugged.

"Besides," she shrugged in return, "a few cracked ribs are no big deal."

"Cracked," Allen echoed in disbelief. "I doubt it. I would have cracked ribs in heavy armor like this. You don't even have armor."

"I do! It's what a Dalish hunter wears. Light and non-constricting, allowing agile and silent movements through a heavily forested area. It protects -"

"Everything but your vital organs." She glowered. "With the way you've been running around shouting, drawing darkspawn out, you should wear something more concealing, less revealing, sturdier and of higher quality. I'll find something for you when we get back to camp."

"There is no higher quality of leather armor than what one of our craftmasters can make," the elf huffed. She crossed her arms and turned. "Let's not forget who was the first one to shout, _shem_."

She scooped her bow up as she passed it, slung it over her shoulder, retrieved her arrows from the fresh corpses, and set out on a cross-country path.

Daveth shrugged, smiled and followed, the others falling in behind their self-proclaimed guide. Not that any of them would complain.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: Short chapter. I can't figure out how I want to approach Morrigan and Flemeth but I also didn't want to leave you guys hanging for too long so ... This is all I have. :) Enjoy.<em>

_len'alas lath'din: dirty child no one loves_


	5. Chapter 5: Witch of the Wilds

The chest was empty. Broken, unsealed, and empty.

Alistair groaned, rubbing his hands through his hair. Duncan did say the treaties were not the main objective yet returning empty-handed seemed like such a failure to the Grey Warden. His four companions, however, did not share in his stress.

Ser Jory was hopping from one foot to the other in an attempt to stay warm as the sun had ducked behind the ruins and pitched them in semi-darkness. Allen was staring absentmindedly the way they had come, possibly checking for darkspawn, possibly being a high-handed noble. Daveth was trailing Emma through a patch of plants, pointing at flowers and leaves and stalks to see if they were useful for anything. She, in turn, was pressing those with medicinal uses between the pages of a thick book.

"Well, well, what do I see here?"

They all jumped at the voice, turning to find its origin as it bounced off stone pillars and archways, eyes searching for the stranger. Allen toyed with his sword, easing it out of the scabbard part way and allowing it to slide back in again; Daveth fingered the smaller throwing knives at his waist; Emma had an arrow ready on her bowstring, another held loosely in her right hand.

The woman stepped from behind a column, her amber eyes intense. Her lips curled in a smug, almost cruel smile as she crossed her arms over her chest - bare save for a loose magenta cowl that scarcely kept her from being naked as it dipped down on her stomach, the hood pulled up over her head, necklaces adorned her neck and collarbone. She had a sleeve of black feathers on one arm. A skirt wrapped low on her hips, boots vanishing beneath the tattered material. She turned and Emma could see that her back was covered more than her front as the cowl met and fit snugly there, baring her shoulder blades. A gnarled stick was held on her back by a thin leather loop, thickest at the end that protruded behind her head. It was no walking stick, and Daveth shuddered as tales of the Witch of the Wilds came to his mind.

"What are you - scavengers or intruders," she asked with mild interest.

Emma raised her bow hand but the string remained undrawn as the stranger stepped forward.

"If she makes a wrong move," Allen mumbled, "put an arrow in her."

Emma clicked her tongue in annoyance. The noble was trying to give her orders again and she disliked it. She couldn't have him going around thinking that he could control a Dalish; if she loosed an arrow on the woman before them it would be because Emma had determined her to be a threat.

"What say you, strangers," the scantily clad figure continued. "Scavengers? Intruders? Perhaps both?" No one answered, wary of offending her, not thinking that their silence might be an offense. "What if I say what I think? I think both. You intrude on my land, mine for none know it better than me. Yet you seek something, disturbing ashes that have long since been left alone. What say you to that?"

"Careful," Alistair said. "She looks Chasind and they usually travel in packs."

"Do you fear barbarians will swoop down upon you," she laughed, raising her arms and bringing them down again.

Alistair tensed more than he already was. "Yes. Swooping is bad."

"She's a Witch of the Wilds, she is," Daveth exclaimed.

"Witch of the Wilds," she scoffed. "Such idle fancies. Have you no minds of your own? You there." She motioned to the elf. "Women do not frighten so easy as men. What say you to this?"

"I -"

"Enough of your words," Allen grumbled. "What have you done with the scrolls?"

"Scrolls?"

"The Grey Warden scrolls. From the chest. You stole them, didn't you?"

"How does one steal from dead men?"

"Quite easily, it would seem," Alistair interjected. "You're some kind of ... sneaky ... witch-thief."

"How very eloquent," the woman muttered, her eyes flashing with anger. "If you insist on being foolish and wish to fight your way back through the darkspawn on your own, I will leave."

She turned on her heel and stomped away.

"Don't let her leave," Allen shouted. "Stop her, elf, shoot her."

The she-elf turned as suddenly as the strange woman had, her eyes blazing angrily, glinting red. Her bow was drawn. The sharp arrow pointed at the human noble, who took a step back in shock. "_Ma halam_," she hissed. "If you give me another order, if you treat me like a flat-ear again, I swear it. You are finished."

And then she was gone, her bow haphazardly placed on her back as she rushed after the woman, braid flitting behind her as it always did. The men were silent. They had no doubt that both women were capable of covering their path, able to hide from any who would follow them, lay false trails even. None of them wanted to walk off into the dangerous wood alone; they would never find their way back again, not to the ruin and not to the king's camp.

"We should go," the Warden said quietly.

"I agree." Allen nodded and headed for the mouth of the ruins. Alistair paused; he had been walking towards the small rise that their companion had disappeared over.

"I meant, we should go after her."

"Why bother? We have what we came for. Who cares whether the elf lives or dies. Ser Jory, let's go. You too ... guy."

"We're supposed to be working together on this!"

"And we did! We got the blood! If the damned elf wants to go off on her own chasing after some Chasind witch she's more than welcome to it. But I'm not going to follow her, not there. I'm going back to camp and I'm getting something to eat from an elf that will actually listen and obey an order, then I'm going to get some sleep before I have to leave tonight. You decide your own fate, Grey Warden, just leave me out of it."

He stormed away, very much acting the spoiled noble that Daveth figured every Fereldan noble would be. Alistair's frown deepened. Jory hesitated, casting glances between the two parties - one Allen Cousland returning to the relative safety of the king's camp, and Daveth and Alistair staying in the unknown Wilds to search for a Dalish elf that had run off on her own. He wanted to say something, anything, to them yet could think of nothing. Instead, he sighed and jogged after the man from Highever. Alistair rubbed his hands through his hair.

"Let's go then," he muttered. "And hope she hasn't found herself in trouble."

* * *

><p>The two armed men stumbled onto the dilapidated hut quite by accident. They had set off in the general direction of what they thought had been the right path, gripping tight their weapons, fearing that at any moment darkspawn would attack - or a group of Chasind. Their eyes searched before and behind them, prowling for any unwanted movement. They hadn't even known the building was a building until Alistair bumped his head on the low end of the roof.<p>

There was a cackle ahead. "I told you they would not be far behind."

Emma leaned around the corner and stared at them. She smiled half-heartedly. Daveth grinned - sure, the Wilds were a scary place and this new development had him terrified, but he was glad to see the girl. Alistair muttered a curse under his breath and led the way around to the front of the house. The woman from the ruins rested casually against the wall, arms crossed over her chest, one leg bent with the flat of her foot against the wall. Another, older woman stood in front of the hut. Her grey hair was a shamble, her skirt and tunic dirty. She cackled again.

"It would seem that not all of your companions are worried about you," she said.

The Dalish elf merely shrugged. In truth, she had not expected any of them to follow her.

"Alistair, Daveth, this is Morrigan and her mother ... Asha'bellanar." She whispered the last word with a mix of fear and respect, her eyes dropping. Daveth thought that, for a moment, her ears had drooped; she looked defeated somehow.

"You're here for your scrolls, aren't you, Grey Warden," the crone asked. "I have them here. Your precious seal wore off years ago and I have kept them since, safe from the horrors of this dirty, wet woodland."

"You -" Alistair paused as the full impact of what she said clicked in his mind. "Oh, you protected them."

"Well, why not? They're important, aren't they?"

"I would rather she sell them to you," Morrigan muttered.

The woman laughed again. Alistair couldn't help thinking it was a mocking gesture. He frowned and placed his hands on his hips with a sigh. Asha'bellanar handed three small rolled papers to the elf who inclined her head before backing away slowly.

"Time for you to leave." This came from Morrigan, standing near a weathered statue and staring into the growing darkness. "If you want to get back to camp before full night comes I suggest you follow me."

She led the group uneventfully through the swampy forest, arriving at the gate just as the sun's last rays disappeared behind the distant mountains. She stayed within the edges of the trees - cut back to form a perimeter of open ground between the camp and the darkspawn horde - and watched with interest. She had heard that elves' eyes seemed to glow in the darkness but had never met an elf before to ask if it were true. She wanted to know now.

Alistair hailed the guard, the gate opened, torchlight thrown out into the gloom, and the russet eyes of the elf lit up. They caught the dancing flame and danced themselves like smoldering coals as Emma looked over her shoulder and offered a little wave as thanks.

Thirty minutes later, the gate opened again to allow Allen and Jory inside.

"Well, look at that," Daveth chuckled. He licked his fingers, sticky with dripping apple juice as he cut into a second of the fruits. He and Emma were leaning against the kennels - the elf surreptitiously dropping pieces into the pen for the tan mabari inside - sharing a light meal before the Joining. "Thought for sure the witch would 'ave put you in a pot."

"I would have welcomed it," Ser Jory answered through chattering teeth. "If it were warm."

Allen said nothing and walked away as Duncan and Alistair approached.

"Congratulations," the older Warden intoned, "on your success in the Korcari Wilds. I would not have asked you to find the documents if they were not important; you have my gratitude. There is still some time before the Joining. I sugge-"

"What's the Joining," Emma asked before shoving a slice of apple in her mouth. She munched on it happily. "You keep talking about it but what is it? You haven't said."

"The Joining is what makes you a Grey Warden. There is a price to pay and fate may have you pay it tonight rather than later. If you survive you will -"

"If? If we survive?"

"You mean it's dangerous," Jory whispered. He took an involuntary half-step back, his heel bumping against the fence post.

Duncan sighed. He took a moment to gather his thoughts, weigh his words. There was much he could not say until after the Joining yet there was much he wished he could say; it would make things much easier, he thought.

"Yes," he finally said. "It is dangerous. There are risks, just as there are risks with being in the army. You will die as a Grey Warden just as you would die as a guard or a soldier or a simple farmer. But there are things you can accomplish as a Warden that you cannot as anything - or anyone - else.

"Now, take some time for yourselves. Upon joining the Grey Wardens, you become part of a great order that is not as well understood as I'd like and often seclusive. I'll send Alistair to collect you when the time is right."

Daveth shrugged and glanced down at the elf. "Would you -"

"Emma." The elf looked over at the Warden-Commander. Alistair was walking away with Ser Jory, a comforting hand on his shoulder, trying to reassure him that things weren't quite as dire as the older man made them seem. "A word, if you would."

Daveth shrugged again and chuckled. "I'm going to find someone who'll share a drink with me," he said. "Join me later?"

She nodded enthusiastically and crossed the small space between her and Duncan as the Warden-Recruit left.

"This Joining ... It's ..." He hesitated. When they had left the Sabrae Clan he had convinced her Keeper that it was best for the girl, that it was her only chance at survival; he had failed to mention that it could very well kill her.

"A big secret," she offered with a small smile. "And I'm not to tell anyone about it, or try to find out what it is before it's time?" She sighed and grew somber, shoulders slumping as she stared blankly into the fire. "It's alright, Duncan. The last time I didn't do as I was told I … I lost the most important thing I've ever had. More than that - I lost everything. I'm in no hurry to repeat it. I'll stay out of trouble, entertaining a few mabari hounds, until you send your man. I won't leave the kennels. Promise."

Duncan smiled down at her and placed an arm around her thin shoulders. "Very well."

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: A little more contention. And those great lines from Alistair!<em>

_ma halam: you are finished_


	6. Chapter 6: The Joining

The guard at the gate had been replaced twice and Emma found herself in something of a quandary. She was bored with the dogs. They had most of them laid down on the straw bedding provided and fallen asleep. The sandy colored mabari relaxed with its side against the fence near enough to her that she could reach through and pet the kaddis-painted fur. But it was tired from her attention and responded only with a heavier breath. And she had promised Duncan she would stay at the kennels and out of trouble. In truth, she was itching to move, to explore. The camp looked so different during the night the way people moved was different; the sounds made were different; the entire air around the soldiers was different.

She stood up. Stretching, she cast a glance around the small clearing where Duncan had his tent pitched. There were a handful of others, smaller with one in between the two sizes farthest away. Nothing moved save the shadows from the low fire.

"A little walk won't get me into trouble," she whispered. The mabari looked up and shook its head in disagreement. "I'll even leave my bow here. You'll watch it, won't you boy? A Dalish without a bow is no danger to anyone," she laughed. Again the head shook. She frowned and stuck her tongue out in a childish manner. "I'll be right back."

She slipped the longbow off her back and leaned it against the railing, unclipped the quiver from her hip and set it next to the weapon. She raised her hands over her head, stretching. Then she was gone, moving like a wraith between shadows, the firelight catching the red in her hair as she was out in the open, light and dark dancing across her skin. If anyone had been watching they wouldn't have seen her until she was right in front of them. Yet she frowned as she paused in the fold of one tent.

Silent movement was different in a camp than in the forest. The trees had seemed to welcome the elf, holding her gently in their branches, leaves swaying in the wind and sending patterns across her skin that helped to hide her even more. The grass bent beneath her foot and sprung into place again silently. The rivers and streams masked her scent; they were best to cover blundering movements, like if one were injured. Bushes and brambles muddled her path behind her, offered her cover that she could dive into if a predator - human or animal - came too close. Here, the tents moved too much, gave way as she leaned into them, offered nothing to brace herself against. The fires lit up the area as much as they cast shadows, sporadic and unpredictable, unlike the dappled light that filtered through a canopy of leaves and branches in a forest. There was too much open, bare ground. The shapes were blocky and forced; nature offered natural unevenness where she could disguise herself by remaining still for hours on end. Here, she was sure, she would be spotted in the first ten minutes. She did not like it.

If there was one positive to her pausing in frustration, it was that she was still hidden. She had almost stepped out again when she heard them - the guards muttering angrily, the man they led in their center stubbornly quiet. They marched away. They didn't notice the smug smile the man cast her way. She froze, thinking she had been found, and tensed as the deep shadows of the tent to her right rippled.

Three men stepped out in single file, their clothes the same style as the first, weapons glinting viciously in the firelight. They nodded and walked away. Each foot was placed carefully on the dirt, testing for traps or twigs that might snap and give them away. The last passed her by, either ignoring her or not seeing her though she couldn't say which.

She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

They were suspicious, she decided. Clearly they were up to no good and, while it wasn't her place, her curiosity urged her to follow. So she did.

They paused in front the larger tent in the small gathering, just before the firelight reached their feet. They spread out; one went to the left, one to the right, and the third continued forward.

Allen Cousland was sitting outside, oiling his sword and rasping a whetstone over its edges. He glanced up at the man. A soldier by looks, he should have addressed the noble as he approached. Both remained silent. The atmosphere changed slowly as they continued to stare at each other, the darkness seeming to press in, the crackling of the fire growing louder as the uncomfortable silence stretched on. Then Allen sighed and stood. He rested the flat of the sword on his shoulder and angled his body so that the blade could easily swing down between him and the other man if the need arose. He couldn't say why he did it; it was some sense of unease, something that told him the two weren't alone here.

"What do you want, soldier," he demanded, just enough authority in his voice to cow any offending man into an answer yet friendly enough to show he was forgiving.

The man remained silent a moment longer. His eyes flickered to the sides, ensuring his companions were in place for the ambush they had planned earlier: outnumber the youngest Cousland and take him by surprise from all sides. He was a natural swordsman, they knew, but untested in battle.

"I'm here for you," the man said quietly. "Your death has been requested."

"What kind of assassin doesn't sneak up on his prey? You must not be very good."

The man dropped his hand to his waist and Allen's eyes followed the movement. The distraction was enough that the other two men could drop in on him simultaneously, swinging a sword and axe in complementary arcs at the noble's head.

He brought his sword up just in time to block the whirring blade, his grip too loose as he had to stoop to avoid the other attacker. His longsword - elegant in design yet bulky enough to still be functional - spun away from his hand and plodded in the dry dirt. Allen had only his shield now, strapped to his back, the laurel leaf adornment offering protection for the moment, and the small dagger at his hip. He drew it. There wasn't much he could do with such a little blade - a prick here or there, nothing that could stop the men. And they weren't allowing him time to put his shield on his arm.

They kept on him, weapons slashing in an array of overheads, underhands, sidehands, backhands, lunges and thrusts that kept the young man dancing. The first strike to touch him rent between two of the plates on his side and he went down on one knee, his face a mask of pain. What was happening? His father had sent him to Ostagar to satisfy his desire to be a part of the king's army without committing both his sons to it. He was supposed to be safe here. Now he was going to die, without even knowing the reason why.

Emma bolted from cover then - not away from the fight but towards it. She didn't know why; she should have run to alert … someone. Duncan maybe. That would probably have sealed his death, she thought with a frown, but I wouldn't be in trouble too.

She slipped one of the throwing knives from the first man's belt - the one that had yet to join the fray, the one who had been a distraction - and drew it across the inside of his arm. He turned with a shout of surprise, fury and pain, and she dug the sharp blade into his other arm. The veins were pulsing, a vital spot that Tamlen had taught her, and he wrapped his hands tightly around the bleeding incisions as best he could. He sunk to his knees, already pale.

His shout had drawn the attention of the other two attackers, and they moved towards her now - they could finish off the noble after they dealt with his foolishly brave servant. They didn't stop to notice that the tattoo printed across her face marked her as a Dalish; they didn't bother to check that her stance was one only a trained fighter could make use of, legs spread wider than her hips, elbows drawn in at her sides, seeming off-balance as she bounced on the balls of her feet; they didn't notice the air of calm around her or the dangerous glint in her eyes as she assessed the situation. All they saw was a small elf in leather garb, weaponless, defenseless, alone.

She stooped, snatched up another two knives from the man she'd already dealt with, and was moving again.

The axeman rushed forward. She dropped as he reached her, the heavy head continuing with his momentum and carrying him one step past the girl. She extended her hand. The knife bit deep into his flesh, severed the tendons at the back of his knee, and left him screaming as she stood.

The swordsman hesitated only slightly, his misstep causing him to lose his rhythm. His arm went up in an overhead arc. She spun away from the moaning men at her feet. His blade missed her, passing so close in front of her face that she could feel the rush of wind from it. She froze. What was she doing? She wasn't a fighter; she'd never killed anyone before, instead acting as the voice of reason between her people and the _shem_ until the Keeper arrived, with her quick smile and genuine curiosity easing the tension as she bounced around.

She squeaked as she ducked beneath the sword again. The curving blade had almost gone unnoticed, the only thing to save her a glint of firelight where there should have been none.

She could hear shouting now, hollering from more men, and she wondered vaguely if they were friend or foe. The dogs barked madly in their pens. The swordsman was coming at her again. She spun the small knife in her hand, took a deep breath and dove at him. He stumbled over her but kept his footing and turned, slamming the pommel between her shoulder blades. She rolled onto her back and lay gasping. He gripped his sword tightly in both hands, brought it up over his head and began a downward swing.

A wicked smile touched Emma's lips.

She stood abruptly, driving the knife into the exposed pit of the man's right arm, twisting it once back and forth so that his hand lost feeling and the limb fell limply to his side. He stared at in disbelief. Then the pain hit him and he rolled on the ground, screaming in agony.

"My lord!"

Emma's hands flew to her mouth. Tears gathered in her eyes. She dropped to her knees, the shock of what she'd done beginning to sink in. She had successfully maimed two men, possibly killed a third. Yet she was going to smile about it, she knew, just like she'd smiled at Tamlen after ordering the death of the _shemlen_ in the forest. She would smile because she could not show the weakness that came with tears - especially tears over the enemy. She clenched her fists.

"Lord Cousland!"

"Are you alright, my lord?"

The soldiers gathered around, some binding the man's hands behind his back in an unnecessary show for control, some making sure the other two weren't about to try something. None of the attackers had a thought in their minds save the pain and fear of dying. A mage tended to the injuries. A templar stood nearby. The men and women asked questions that no one could answer. Allen shook his head. He did not trust himself to speak, and had questions of his own.

The young Dalish elf slipped away quietly in the confusion. She passed the kennels, took her bow and quiver in hand and nodded reassurance to the tan mabari that looked at her questioningly. She made her way to the Joining without further incident.

Alistair was at the bottom of the stairs, rubbing his hands through his hair in worry, pacing back and forth and back again, muttering to himself. He started as she cleared her throat.

"Why," he groaned. "Why are you covered in blood?"

"Am I? I hadn't noticed."

She looked down at her hands. She hadn't felt the blood splatter her, didn't feel it now, and shuddered. She swallowed past the queasiness and forced her breathing to remain even. It had not been like her at all - rushing into such a dangerous situation.

Alistair sighed. "Come on. You're the only one we're waiting for. I looked for you at the kennels."

"Not very recently," she muttered.

* * *

><p>Duncan sighed as he caught sight of the bloodied elf but said nothing. He did not want to know just yet what she'd done. Perhaps he didn't want to know at all. Jory stood on the other side of Daveth as they lined up before the Grey Wardens. The rogue cast a glance at the nimbly-built girl and smiled coyly. She would have a story to tell him later.<p>

"And now we come to the Joining," Duncan began. His deep voice carried easily through the ruined stone temple. It was bare save for a single marble table and silver chalice; the roof had crumbled long ago and moonlight shone in on them. "We were founded during the first Blight when humanity stood on the verge of annihilation. Thus it was that the first Grey Wardens drank of darkspawn blood. And mastered its taint."

Stunned silence. That was always the first reaction of recruits, and this time was no different. Then Jory shifted his weight.

"You mean we have to drink the blood of those ... those monsters," he said in quiet horror. Duncan nodded solemnly.

"This is our source of power and our victory. Those who survive the Joining become immune to the taint. It is necessary." He paused and looked at each of them. "I am confident each of you has what it takes to be a Grey Warden; I would not have recruited you otherwise, knowing what I know."

Daveth and Emma nodded their acceptance; Jory was a little slower to agree with them but did, a curt nod followed by a shudder.

"We speak only a few words prior to the Joining, but these have been said since the first. Alistair."

The young Warden cleared his throat, squared his shoulders and drew breath, steadying himself. When Duncan had asked him to recite the Grey Warden oath for tonight he had been surprised - and honored. Surely it should have been a task for an older Warden, one who hadn't been recruited himself six months ago. He had to get it perfect.

"Join us, brothers and sisters." He paused and bent his head, almost as if in prayer. "Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant. Join us as we carry the duty that cannot be forsworn. And should you perish, know that your sacrifice will not be forgotten and that one day ... we shall join you."

Duncan nodded his approval and Alistair almost smiled - almost, but caught himself. Now was not the time; he could be proud later.

"Daveth, step forward."

The man obeyed. He had been the most accepting of the three recruits, the most at ease in the bustling army camp, the one with a quick smile and contagious laugh. He cast a smile over his shoulder at the elf, who offered a nod in return. Then he took the chalice and put it to his lips and took a quick drink.

It was a moment before he sputtered, clutching at his throat and coughing. He fell to his knees, leaning on one arm, the other still grasping at his neck. Jory stepped back in fear as the man from Denerim collapsed face down on the cold floor and ceased moving. His eyes had rolled back in his head, showing only blank whites that stared even after death.

"I'm sorry, Daveth," the Warden-Commander said quietly, reverently. "Step forward, Jory."

He backed away further. "No. I ... I have a wife. A child on the way. I can't ... If I had known ... But I ... You ask too much. I won't!"

"There is no turning back. I warned you there was no turning back. I did say the price was steep, Jory. Now step forward."

He shook his head, his back against the wall behind him, his hand already reaching for his greatsword. Duncan frowned and placed the chalice on the table before stepping closer to the man. He pulled his sword, determined not to drink something that must be poison. Why else would Daveth be dead now?

"There is no glory in this," he muttered angrily and swung.

A fraction of a second too late as Duncan pushed his own blade - a short sword - into the armored abdomen and wrenched it upwards. It was a quick death, as painless as the old Warden could make it, and he eased the body down to the stone floor.

"I am sorry, Jory."

He wiped his sword quickly, sheathed it, picked the chalice up again and held it out to the Dalish elf. She hesitated. If she didn't drink she would die - by the blade or by the sickness already in her veins; yet if she drank she could still die. She looked to Alistair for some hint. He stared at the ground, hands balled into fists, jaw clenched tightly. She couldn't tell if it was anger or regret or even fear that he felt.

Was this what the Creators wanted for me, she thought. To live long enough only to choose my own ending?

"Emma," Duncan said, gentle and firm at once. "This is your cure. It is the best I can offer."

The young woman frowned. "Creators willing," she mumbled and, before she could change her mind, took the cup in hand and swallowed the liquid.

She forced it down, fighting the urge to spit it out. It was hot as fire and burned her throat, setting her insides aflame, ash in her mouth, her tongue heavy and useless. Her head was spinning, the world swirling around her as whispering voices filled her ears with a language she couldn't understand. Her vision blurred, faded, ended in darkness. She gasped.

It was like the cave all over again.


	7. Chapter 7: Planning and Practice

"_You don't really want to be seen with me," she whispered from her perch on the rock overlooking the waterfall. Her black hair was cropped short to her head and, were it not for her gentler features, she would have been easily mistaken as a boy._

_The elf picked her way along the riverbank, trying unsuccessfully to skip flat stones across the rapidly moving water. She tugged at one of the braids that fell over her shoulder._

"_Yes I do," she said suddenly. There was no hesitation, no quiver of doubt in her words. Her hesitation came only from the river, the memory of water in her lungs and gasping for air as Tamlen pulled her from its depths, comforting her and ignoring his own injury that had come from rescuing her. She dared not go any closer than she was, and the dark-haired elf was hanging over it precariously, swinging her legs._

"_I want to be seen with you, Merrill, because I want to be your friend. I don't care that you're to be the Keeper's First. I like you."_

_She smiled widely, her nose crinkling and her eyes lighting up, shining titian in the noon light. The vivid green of the other elf's eyes were made even more green from the tears._

"_Are you … Do you mean it?"_

"_Of course, _lethallan_!"_

* * *

><p>Emma sat up groggily and rubbed her eyes. Her hair was loose down her back, her legs covered with a thin fur blanket, her Dalish longbow leaning against the cot she occupied. She looked around the dim interior of the tent curiously. It was like waking up back in Ashalle's <em>aravel<em> - she had no memory of how she got there. There was another sleeping figure on the other side of the tent. She stood. She picked up her quiver and bow and slung them both over her back, hissing as they thumped into the bruise between her shoulders.

"Right," she mumbled. "Saved that stupid _shem_."

She would have to tell someone about it later, but for now she was content to live with the reminder of her own stupidity. Whatever that was about, it wasn't her business and she was a fool for involving herself.

She crossed the tent, edging around the strangest table she'd ever seen. It had a raised lip all the way around and was covered in fine sand with carved symbols sitting on top, marking mountains and forests and units of the army. The second cot was closer to the entrance than hers had been and she had to pass it to leave. She paused.

Allen was lying on it. Without the anger that she'd seen in the Wilds he looked like he might actually be a nice person. She leaned over him. He didn't have his platemail armor on but a simple cream tunic and woolen trousers, a blanket crumpled on the floor as one arm hung over the edge of the frame. He was paler than normal; she blamed it on the attempted murder.

So this is the infirmary tent, she mused. Smaller than I thought it'd be.

She picked the blanket up from the floor and spread it over the prone figure with a fluttering shake. The tent opened to her left. A woman stepped inside, pitcher in one hand and platter in the other.

"Ah," she said in mild surprise. "Duncan said you might be waking up soon. Food. Water." She extended her hands and waited while the elf hesitantly took them and stood awkwardly. Then she drew her shoulder blades together as she squared her shoulders, grimaced at the pain, and stared at the tall woman.

"I'm not a servant!"

The woman stood confused for a moment, then laughed as she realized what the elf must be thinking. Emma frowned. "It's not for you to give to him," she said with a shake of her head, the curled pony twisting with her movement. "It's for you. I brought it to you so you could eat something. I'll bring more for Allen when he wakes up."

"I ... I'm not hungry."

"You will be later. And then you won't have time to eat." She sighed and sat on the empty cot, patting the spot beside her for Emma to do the same.

"I wasn't hungry after my Joining either."

"You're a Grey Warden," the elf asked in surprise.

"Yes. One of a handful here, and one of two women - three now, with you in our ranks. Though I question the commander's sense in recruiting such a young girl."

"I can fight, you know, and -"

"Oh, we've all heard about you, Mahariel. You're the reason the noble pup there decided to join. It took a lot of convincing us guarding the way in to the temple to actually let him in. Said you saved his life, even though you hate him, and that you didn't hesitate to do it despite risk to yourself. And that, maybe with people like you in the Wardens, things might start looking up around here. Sounded almost proud of you, he did."

"I don't hate him. And I don't even know why I did it."

It was a whispered confession and the Dalish's red-brown eyes stared at the plate of food, still untouched on her lap. The Warden beside her frowned slightly. Duncan had wanted her in here when the new Wardens woke up. Answer any questions they have, be ready for a bombardment from the small one, get them food, and send them off to the commander when they were ready. She was known to have a soft spot for the newest of the order.

"Instinct."

Emma brushed her hair back and cast a sidelong glance at her.

"Instinct will always lead you. Don't be afraid to follow it." She cleared her throat.

"Is this the infirmary?"

"Duncan's tent."

"Why am I still in armor and he's not?"

"His armor needed repairing and had to be removed for the mage treating him to ensure the spell had done its proper job. It was a measure of luck that kept the sword on the side instead of piercing further in his ribs," she added. "He might not have survived otherwise, stubborn as he was to take the Joining before healing." The elf took a bite of bread as the Warden motioned for her to eat. She still wasn't hungry and the bread had no flavor as it touched her tongue but she would eat anyway. "And," she paused, flicked a blonde curl out of her eyes and glanced at the Dalish. "We also don't know how to take your outfit off."

"Here," Emma pointed to the belt buckle and lifted it slightly. There was another buckle beneath it to loosen the leather skirt. "Here." She pointed at her chest, tugged the ends of a pair of cords from under the tight leather and undid the knot, the top lace already coming loose.

"It's like a corset," the blonde woman nodded her understanding. "Except the lacing is much tighter and smaller and in the front rather than the back."

"What's a corset?"

"Something I'm not overly fond of wearing," she laughed.

Emma shrugged. "When you get the top laces loose, you unclip this." Her hands moved over the armor in a familiar way, reaching to the side and undoing a nearly invisible hook that kept a section of supple leather wrapped over the laces which went all the way down to the bottom of the short chestpiece. She tightened the lacing and secured the cover once more."And then loosen the rest of them and slip it over your head. I think you're the only human who knows how to do it."

"Well then, I'll be sure to pass it along so our mages know - in case you ever need healing."

Allen groaned suddenly and sat up. His hand went to his side as he remembered the wound. But there was nothing there. The Grey Warden stood, smiled at him. "I'll go get some more food now that you're awake. When the two of you are finished, Duncan will be waiting for you just outside the temple where the Joining was held."

The two sat in awkward silence as the woman left, the elf standing to follow her but not moving. Allen swung his legs over the side of the cot and pulled his boots on, tying them quickly, his eyes cast down and his lips in a grim frown. Emma took an arrow from her quiver - lying next to her bag on the floor of the tent, her bow across her knees - and fiddled with the grey-and-brown feathers. They were smooth and slipped easily through her fingers. The noble stood and examined the table, moving a few of the carvings around, frowning and moving them again. Then he shook his head and sat on the ground. He looked over at the Dalish hunter.

"I'm Allen," he said suddenly.

She stared at him for moment, eyes turning to slits, lips in a scowl, and crossed her arms over her chest. The arrow spun absent-mindedly in her fingers. "I know."

"And … you are?"

She clicked her tongue. "You have called me 'elf' as though it is a name. Don't you remember?"

He sighed and stared with renewed interest at the toes of his boots. "Yes. I do remember. And I remember I was more than rude to you and that you didn't deserve my poor treatment. And … that you saved my life, despite my attitude towards you. Thank you. Mahariel, thank you."

"It's not like I did it for you," she said, standing suddenly, catching her bow in hand and snagging the quiver and bag from the floor. She crossed to the tent with quick steps, paused with the material brushed to side. She motionted to the plate of food. "You can have that. I'm not hungry."

The sunlight blinded her as she stepped outside, warm against her bare skin. She shielded her eyes and looked up at the sky. Midmorning, she estimated. She stopped at the kennels. The kennelmaster nodded a greeting at her and the dogs barked their own happy greeting. She was about to move on when the man stopped her with an abrupt hand on her shoulder.

"Could I bother you for some help, Warden?"

She nodded slowly. She wasn't certain she could help at all. After all, she hadn't done anything on the list he'd given her the day before, instead playing with the animals, and wouldn't be able to do anything if he decided to leave her with another. Despite his neat printing she couldn't make out the words.

"You went into the Wilds yesterday, didn't you? Did you … Did you happen to find a flower out there - white with a red center."

"A Wilds flower?" She rummaged in her bag, withdrew her book, fluttered through the pages. The last seven were stuffed with two or three flowers each, all of them white with red centers and a single leaf on the short stem. She handed him two.

"Thank you, Warden." She nodded and skipped away after shoving the book back in its place.

* * *

><p>"But I … I'm not a leader. I can't … No one would follow me and I …" Her words trailed off, shoulders slumping as she realized this had already been decided and her excuses were falling on deaf ears.<p>

King Cailan smiled warmly, his face a mirror of Duncan's beside her. She shook her head again. The request was unprecedented, unheard of to all gathered at the table. It was evident in the silence surrounding them. To put so much responsibility in the hands of a Dalish elf, especially one so unwilling … It was crazy. Surely it would spell the death of every man under her command.

"Consider it a favor," the king said lightly. "A first step towards a more peaceful existence between your people and my own."

"But I'm Dalish! Your people are afraid of mine. O-or they hate us."

"That's exactly why I want you to lead them. Not the fear or hate part, mind you. It's the fact that you are indeed Dalish - a true Dalish archer. Your people's skill with a bow is world-renowned. I think it would greatly bolster spirits to know that someone like you stood at the head of them."

"I …"

"Emma," Duncan interjected calmly. "I believe you can do this. I would not encourage his Majesty so if I didn't."

"But you also believed we would all be Grey Wardens," she mumbled.

The smile faltered on his lips. He sighed deeply and rubbed the back of his neck, closing his eyes and standing silent for a moment. Emma regretted it the moment she said it. She knew the loss pained him more than it did her, for he had known the men longer, had grown fond of them. It was the Creators that led this man to her in the Brecilian Forest; he was her savior and all she could seem to do was cause him more stress and trouble than he had bargained for.

"_Ir abelas_." She drew a deep breath, gathered what little courage she could and stared hard at Cailan. "I'll do it."

His smile widened and he nodded enthusiastically. "Wonderful. I'll point you to the sargeant major once we've finished. Duncan, I'd like your other new Wardens to light the signal at the Tower of Ishal."

"Your Majesty, you depend too much on these Grey Wardens."

Cailan's eyes flashed with anger and impatience as he turned to his strategist. The two men were as different as night and day. One had blonde hair and bright blue eyes; the other was a brown so dark it was black and eyes nearly the same shade. A smile on one face; a scowl on the other. Optimism and hope from one; realism and negativity from the next. Confidence against questioning sniffs and disdain. This was an old converstaion, the two Wardens could tell, as could the other onlookers from the Chantry and Circle. It was not something Cailan wished to repeat.

"I have told you, Loghain, we're sending the best we have. If they happen to be Grey Wardens then so be it. That is not the reason I'm requesting them and damn you know it. I trust them; that's why they're going."

"And the elf? Do you trust her as well, Cailan?"

"I trust Duncan, and he trusts her."

"That isn't the same," he sighed. "Oh, thank the Maker that Maric did not live to see his son grow into such a fool king."

"I am no fool but I am king, Loghain. Don't forget that." He turned his attention back to the map and the Wardens.

"Duncan, the battle is tonight. Alistair and Allen Cousland will go to the Tower of Ishal and light the signal when we're ready. That will bring Loghain's part of the army crashing onto the rear of the darkspawn. Mahariel will be ordering the archers in their volleys. I trust you can keep a steady flow."

She nodded, her jaw shut tightly. Duncan nodded beside her and saluted as the king turned away, ending the strategy meeting. He stopped to talk to a man standing in the large entryway, pointed back to the Wardens, and left. Loghain followed shortly. The two from the Circle and the Chantry left by seperate archways, casting discreet scowls at one another.

"Warden Mahariel?"

"Yes."

The man raised his eyebrows as the elf answered. He had expected as much, knowing that the other was the Warden-Commander, but had thought that perhaps Mahariel had left already and this was simply another Warden. He cleared his throat before continuing. "I'm the sargeant major over the archery unit. King Cailan told me to assist you in giving directions."

The slightly built elf hesitated for a moment then pointed at the map still spread on the massive table.

"Where will we be?"

"Here, along the left and center flanks. There are four hundred of us so we could spread out along the entire front if you wanted."

"No. If we spread them out they won't be able to hear me. I need them all to hear me. And I need a steady flow of volleys," she muttered to herself. "There can't be any pause in there if we plan to devastate the darkspawn. What we need …" She closed her eyes as she thought. Human archers could never match the speed and precision of the nomadic elves. Yet in a group, the hail of arrows they could send up could darken the skies. If she could just figure out a way to make sure the raining weapons wouldn't stop or pause … "Three sections. One hundred thirty five men in the left and right, one hundred thirty in the middle and I'll pick up the slack from the missing five there. I'll need some sort of platform to stand on."

"We can do that."

"And I need to know that they'll listen. Gather them up, please, and meet me at the archery range."

* * *

><p>The targets had been rearranged at different distances and heights. Most of those in the archery unit were surprised and slightly intimidated by this development. They knew they had a new commander, someone over the sargeant major they had become accustomed to following, and they didn't know who it was or what experience they had directing part of an army. Or what they were planning now.<p>

Their murmurs were answered soon enough and their uneasiness faded as they drilled with their new commander - an elf, and young, they were surprised to see. They were grouped into lines of ten, coached into five different elevations at full draw and slightly different facing directions. Each line shot for ten minutes before another was called forward. The rest of the hour was spent with those who wanted extra pointers staying on the line and the remainder of the men relaxing as elves rushed between them with water and sliced apples.

Emma looked up at the sky, judged that they had spent enough time practicing, and called them all to rest. They mingled near enough that they could hear her if she started talking but not so close to crowd her. She watched as an elf picked up the arrows from the range, shoving them into a larger-than-normal quiver slung over his back.

Duncan watched the Dalish girl from the shadow of his tent, trying to escape the dry heat of the southern reaches of Fereldan. He found it strange that just beyond the walls of the old fortress the ground was mushy with water that never dried up nor escaped into the air to give the Wilds a humid atmosphere. Despite the elf's protests at the meeting, she was a rather good leader. It seemed that once she set her mind to a task it would be accomplished. He straightened as she shouted for attention.

"You've all done a really good job," she said with a thoughtful nod. "I'm impressed. I've never met such skilled archers among the humans before. I think that's all the drilling we need today. Take it easy until the battle tonight. You'll be broken up into three squads, the larger two on the left and right and myself in the middle squad so you all can hear me. If we do our job right, it'll make things a lot easier for the rest of the army. And I don't know about you, but I want to get home soon."

They nodded and voiced their agreement and the elf smiled. She waved to dismiss them. They shuffled away. Duncan half-expected her to sit in the pens with the mabari. Yet she turned and walked towards the bridge that led to the Tower of Ishal - and the exit, he realized with a start. She couldn't be trying to leave now, he thought in dismay. It would be the worst timing. He followed from a distance, pausing now and again to duck behind a pillar. His behavior was suspicious, he knew, but he didn't want the elf to know he was following her.

Up ahead, she chuckled to herself at Duncan's movement. The soldiers were muttering about him, some questioning his sanity just before a battle.

She stopped in the middle of the bridge, leaned against the railing and sighed. She climbed up a few moments later, crossed her legs, rested her bow on her knees, and closed her eyes. She forced the soldier's footsteps passing on the stone to fade to the back of her mind, ignored their short acknowledgements and greetings, quieted her racing thoughts and pounding heart, focused on her breathing and the breath of the earth around her. It took her a moment, the silence in her mind so complete, to notice that Duncan was standing next to her. She glanced sideways at him.

"You're not sleeping here, are you," he asked with a raised eyebrow. "It could prove to be quite a fatal mistake."

"I was praying. Well," she added. "About to pray. I wasn't sure entirely yet to whom I should pray. What do you think?"

"I'm of no use here, I'm afraid. I don't know your gods."

"Oh."

They were silent, the wind the only noise between them. It had been blowing all day, and the day before, and the clouds it drew in were thick and black. Duncan shifted his weight. "Is there a god you could pray to about that? It's always easier to wage a battle without the elements against you."

"Perhaps Mythal or Falon'din. Protection, fortune, a guide for those who … die tonight. Andruil would be good as well - for the battle but not weather. Maybe even Ghilan'nain. It might be a bit of a stretch, but as the goddess of navigation she could guide our arrows."

"Sounds like you've figured it out."

"I suppose I have. _Ma_ _serannas_, Duncan." She grinned and looked out over the Wilds again.

"You did a good job with the archers," he said before turning away. Emma watched his back as he went, smiled again, this one small and sad. It had been Tamlen's idea, years ago when they were children having to leave in the landships for the first time, to use a set-up similar to what she was doing now.


	8. Chapter 8: The Night Battle

The rain began before night fell, before the battle was to take place. The ground soaked it up and thick mud squelched beneath boots as soldiers prepared, checking the edges of swords and axes and daggers, tightening the straps of their shields, clapping themselves and their comrades into armor. They gathered in their ranks, looked to those in charge to give a speech or two. It was tradition, one that some considered superstitious.

The Wardens met and received their orders separately, briefly greeting the two newest to join beneath their banner. Duncan have no speech, no word of encouragement or reassurance, no smile. The situation was too grave for niceties. They all knew it. The could feel it in the air, in the fidgeting of the mabari hounds as they were walked round and round, in the low murmur that ebbed from every throat save their own, in the rain as it pounded the tents, creating puddles to be trekked through or skirted around, running in rivulet through weak spots in the stone walls.

"Never seen battle before, elf?"

The youngest Warden started at the quiet question. He glanced up quickly - a flicker of her eyes - and stared at the ground again. She was frowning, chin trembling, hands white-knuckled fists at her sides. "That's not entirely true," she mumbled. "I've fought before. I've killed before. It's just ... I've never ..."

"It's alright," Allen answered. He drew a sharp, short breath, tied his hair back, straightened his shield. "I haven't been involved in something this big before either. But there's nothing to worry about. We can go out there and be scared together."

"Actually, you -"

"Allen." The nobleman looked over at the Warden-Commander. There were less Wardens now, those who had their orders meandering off. A few more left as Duncan continued. "You'll be charged with lighting the beacon inside the Tower of Ishal. Alistair, you'll accompany him."

"What," the blonde man asked in disbelief. "No! Duncan, I -"

"I can do it on my own. I don't -"

"- want to be in the battle with you."

"- need a babysitter. How hard -"

"Emma can -"

"- could it be?"

"- go instead."

He held his hands up to stop them. "This is a request from the king. And Emma already has her assignment well under way."

The elf's shoulders tensed at her name, her jaw set in a determined line. The spot between her shoulder blades ached; she ignored the mild pain, having forgotten to visit a healer throughout the day. Her stomach fluttered in anticipation and settled into a sense of dread that stiffened her muscles. She was glad she hadn't eaten earlier, sure that she would have emptied it multiple times already. She was a contradiction to the three men before her - ready to cry yet standing to fight.

"Really," Alistair said with a frown. "What's that?"

"Directing the archers. Of course, there's a wall of soldiers between her unit and the oncoming darkspawn," he added with a meaningful nod. "They have specific orders to guard you and your men. Too many will die if we lose the volleys, after all."

"Right. I should go find the sar'major, make sure everything's in order and everyone's ready." She walked off quickly, fidgeting with her quiver, but paused abruptly with one foot still in the air. She threw a glance over her shoulder at the three expectant men. "_Dareth, ma tan._" Then she was gone, moving easily among the bustle, no more than a second of russet hair here or there among all the leather and steel.

Duncan stared a moment longer then turned to two of his youngest and newest companions. Alistair's jaw was still set in a stubborn line, yet the determined light in his eyes told the older man he would follow orders. Allen had a slightly bored stance about him but his eyes were sharp and steady. The Rivaini man nodded to himself.

"When you've finished at the tower, make your way to Emma and join her guard. I want the three of you to stay close. No heroics from either of you."

"It's Emma you should tell that to," Alistair chuckled.

"You're right," he mumbled. He stroked his beard in contemplation. There was still time before the battle and though Cailan would expect his company soon, the king understood better than most the need to keep as many Wardens alive as possible. Surely he could … He shook his head. You'll have to tell her for me. Tell her it's an order. Head to the tower as soon as the battle begins. I have to go."

"Duncan," Alistair called as his mentor turned away. "Maker watch over you."

"Maker watch over us all," he nodded solemnly.

* * *

><p>Allen stood quietly, a deep frown creasing his forehead, leaning over the makeshift wall that had been built up on the bridge. He was staring intently at the cleared field before the Korcari Wilds began. Thousands of men and women - soldier, knights, mages - stood steady and solemn in the pounding rain, from this height seeming no bigger than a child's dolls. Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating the trees, and the hounds barked as thunder rolled. The rain was no better up here, maybe even worse as the bridge between the two towers was more exposed to the raging elements. Allen wiped the rain from his eyes. Alistair shifted his weight beside him.<p>

The Wardens could have waited in the relative comfort of a tent - yet even those had sprung leaks beneath the insistent downpour. It was like some higher being was trying to drown this place in a new ocean, the nobleman though glumly.

He straightened as the mist began threading its way out from the trees. The darkspawn wouldn't be far behind, he knew. He'd grown up on tales of the Blights, could be found late at night with a candle burning and an open book in the library where he'd fallen asleep. His tutor didn't share in his enthusiasm, but as a boy he'd play pretend that he himself was a mighty Grey Warden riding into battle on the back of a majestic and terrifying griffon. He was a Grey Warden now but the griffons were all gone.

"Maker's breath." He shook himself from his reverie. The soldiers manning the ballistas - aimed at the base of the trees across the field - had cluttered together between the four machines. "But look at 'em all."

The treeline was a roiling mass as dark figures approached, growling and grumbling and shrieking. The Wardens watched as they charged toward the Fereldan army, swimming in and out of sight through the rain and lightning.

"What is she waiting for," Alistair groaned. He was watching the archers, their three distinct sections unready, the smallest figure among them turned away from the enemy horde.

"Come on, elf," Allen whispered.

* * *

><p>Down on the battlefield the elf was surrounded by the same whispers. Her bow leaned against the wooden railing of her platform, the bottom half weaved in with wicker branches to offer protection from any arrows that strayed her way. Darkspawn were mindless on their own, but with a general they could be directed to pick off the human leaders.<p>

She watched as the creatures swarmed closer, watched her unit as they fidgeted and hesitated, watched the soldiers that would act as a breaker grip their swords and shields tight and cast glances over their shoulders. But Emma had to wait. The wind was against them, their shots would be shorter, and she needed to make sure the darkspawn couldn't simply fade into the Wilds once the arrows started flying. There had to be enough behind those in the lead to keep pushing them forward.

She licked her lips nervously.

"Section one." Her throat was tight and her voice trembled but with the wind howling it went unnoticed. And she seemed relaxed. She rested her weight on her right leg, her arms crossed loosely on her lower torso, bow still leaning casually on the platform in front of her. "Face half right. Shortbows at poition two, longbows at position three, last row at maximum distance - position five." The sergeant major had stationed four elves at the foot of the platform to relay her instructions and they jogged away now, passing the word along. "Sections two and three face front. Shortbows position two, longbows positions two and three, last row position four. On my word."

Four hundred bows went up, four hundred arrows nocked to strings, four hundred men and women straining to hear their young yet proud commander through the howling wind and rain. They took steadying breaths. They could feel the eyes of the army on them, wondering why they were waiting, why they weren't shooting. But they understood now.

"Draw."

Four hundred arms moved back in unison, shoulder blades pushing together, fingers acting as anchor points for the notches cut into the shafts. With four different elevations, the elf would be releasing a wide-spread volley able to cut off retreat for the darkspawn and offering no cover for any caught on the clear ground. She was matching wind direction and strength with the speed of the encroaching monsters and the speed of her own unit. She took a deep breath and readied her own bow in what seemed like a heartbeat to those close by her.

"Release!"

Four hundred arrows sped away with a slithering hiss, another dozen lagging behind as the elf emptied half her quiver.

* * *

><p>Alistair whistled. "She really knows what she's doing, doesn't she," he asked of no one in particular.<p>

While the men on the bridge couldn't see the arrows of hear the orders being given, they could see the devastation it caused. Darkspawn in the front had begun to drop, along with those further back. Most of the arrows had hit the center of the charge and seemed to force the twisted creatures to break into smaller groups and scatter towards the eagerly waiting mabari.

The first ballista loosed a streaking flameball towards the Wilds, followed by the second, third and fourth, reloaded already with a chunk of the fortress. There were five men to each machine; four outfitted the heavy projectiles while the fifth coaxed a flame to catch on the oil and tar ladened cloth around the stone.

"I wouldn't want to face a Dalish army," Allen said.

Alistair raised his eyebrows. "The Dalish don't have an army."

"If they did, she'd lead it."

They nodded to each other thoughtfully, staring down on the battle a moment longer. Then Alistair turned. "We should get to the Tower of Ishal. Duncan is expecting us to be ready when they send the signal."

"Right. Remind me why King Cailan needs two Grey Wardens to hold a torch to a soaking stack of wood."

Alistair shrugged and jogged his way across the bridge. They had barely made it to the ramp leading up when two men ran down, stumbling as they reached flat ground. One mage and one soldier, Alistair noted. I hope they haven't been fighting.

"You! You're Grey Wardens, aren't you," the soldier asked frantically. "The tower - it's been taken."

"Calm down," Allen said evenly, his hands out to reinforce the statement. "Tell us, from the beginning, what happened."

He took a breath. "We don't know. There were men inside earlier today to make sure everything was ready for the battle. They didn't say anything about darkspawn but I guess they could have come up when we were changing shifts."

"Come up from where?"

"Tunnels. There's a tunnel, found a few days ago when Teryn Loghain told us we'd be using the tower in the attack, but it didn't go anywhere."

"Well, it does now," Alistair muttered and glanced up the ramp. "Sounds as though we'll have to fight our way through."

"Let's get started," Allen chuckled.

"I'll come with you." They turned to the mage. He was young, determined, well-trained as all Circles mages were. "I can help."

The men shrugged and nodded. The soldier hesitated as the three left him in the courtyard then followed with a muttered prayer to the Maker.

* * *

><p>"Maker, I hate them," Alistair grumbled. He was leaning against an open door jamb, the last of a group of darkspawn from the next room at his feet, his sword dripping blood and his armor and skin splattered with it. Allen fared no better and wiped furiously at the hot liquid with the back of his hand; the blood just smeared across his cheek and forehead.<p>

"Don't complain." A vicious smile flashed across his face. "At least we're getting some of the action. Mahariel can't claim it all this time."

"You don't seem to like her very much."

Allen sighed and sheathed his dagger after cleaning the blade on a blanket from one of a number of bunk beds in the room. The second floor was clearly where soldiers had decided to house themselves while watching this side of the army camp; some of them were still lying in their beds, their blood a flickering black in the firelight. He had been switching seamlessly between wielding a sword and shield and dual blades, sometimes using the shield as an offensive weapon that threw the darkspawn off-balance and gave him just the right amount of time to slide a dagger between their ribs.

"It's not that," he muttered. "I like her just fine, I guess, I just … Look, I know I was wrong to treat her the way I did in the Wilds and I apologized to her for it. Though she didn't actually accept said apology. But I have been trying to treat her like she's … well, not an elf."

"Good. For now, I suppose."

"Can we just get back to killing things now?"

Alistair nodded and stood up, scratched his chin and led his way up the final set of stairs. "We should light the beacon as soon as we can. I'm sure we've missed the signal by now." He pressed his shoulder against the solid wood door and gave it a shove.

"You and the mage light the signal," Allen chuckled. "I'll slice up anything that …"

The older man turned to stare into the colonnaded third floor as Allen's voice faded. For a moment it seemed empty save for the wind whipping between the pillars and the central chimney waiting to be lit; there were dark and unmoving shapes which he took to be barrels emptied of their oil. Then lightning flashed across the sky, too close to the tower for comfort, and lit up their surroundings, and he understood why the two men hesitated - two because one of their party lay on the first floor after stumbling over a trap, leaving the three of them for the Maker's side.

An ogre.

Alistair was tempted to back out of the room and down the stairs, away from those massive curling horns and knife-sharp teeth, but the beady eyes had already swung their way. If the creature could come up the stairs it could certainly batter its way down them without any consideration. In fact, he was sure the brute would charge with its head down like a battering ram in contempt of their being humans. He could see the muscles bunching from here, could see the strain as it held itself back, the chimney slightly in the way, could feel in the stone floor rather than hear the deep growl in its throat.

"Move. Move now!"

They split, Alistair dragging the mage to the left and Allen diving to the right as the ogre - grey skinned, black eyed, blood covered, unarmored and unarmed - crashed into the door. It shattered the stone archway and splintered the wood, rubble falling onto its shoulders unnoticed as it shook itself clear and swung its arms around in an attempt to hit them. The mage, thankfully, had landed atop Alistair and the two, still struggling to their feet, managed to duck. Allen wasn't so lucky.

The massive fist struck him in the chest, throwing him back into one of the columns that supported the upper levels of the tower. He rolled and caught himself, coughing at the pain; his armor was dented inward and his shield mirrored it, concave on his back. The ogre seemed to grin madly as it charged again, smashing into the pillar. The stone held solid. Allen struck out with his own fist - his dagger held loosely, grip tightening just before he made contact - and wrenched upwards. The oversized darkspawn let out a hair-raising guttural roar.

"Alistair," he shouted into the wind.

The creature followed him, rushing forward like a bull, the tower shaking with each hit. Allen dove to the side at the last second each time, would stab blindly into whatever area of flesh he could reach while it regained its footing for another attack. This would take too long, he knew. He would die before his opponent bled out. The mage could always cast flame around his sword, causing more pain with each cut, but then the edges of the lesion would be sealed, the blood stopped as the flames cauterized the wound. It was better to use cold steel.

"Alistair, you better get that signal lit!"

It wasn't rushing anymore. It came at him at a slow jog, its steps pounding the stone floor, arms swinging wildly. It had completely forgotten about the other two, its rage focused on this one small man in front of it. If it decided to charge now, Allen would have no escape; he'd backed himself between two of the colonnades and was taking small steps closer to the edge. He glanced over his shoulder. His breath came in gasps, whether from the crushed armor on his chest or his efforts he didn't know. He couldn't feel the pain yet, wouldn't guess how badly injured he was. He would keep moving until -

There was a burst of light behind the looming form. The beast turned.

Allen was on the attack now. His steps carried him forward and he lunged, his short blade digging into the heavily muscled thigh of the ogre and giving him a step to propel himself upwards, sword hissing out of its sheath and glinting red in the firelight. It punctured at the joint between the neck and head. He jumped and rolled, the massive foot catching him in the chest as the ogre stumbled, teetering on the edge of the tower. And then it was gone, disappearing into the blackness of the courtyard below; Allen sighed and turned onto his back.

"Allen!" Alistair knelt beside him, the mage closer to the door, casting nervous glances around. "Duncan said no heroics. You could have -"

His sentence was cut off with a grunt as an arrow protruded from his shoulder. He turned. Darkspawn were swarming in from the stairwell and he could do nothing about it. He would die here tonight. They both would. But at least they lit the beacon. At least, he thought as another ragged broadhead sliced into his skin, we didn't fail.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: Sorry this one's late. My internet's been really hit and miss lately and decided to quit on me halfway through writing yesterday so I'm at the library right now. Just had to wait until I got off work. I feel like this chapter's really choppy ...<em>

_And did it ever confuse anyone else why we waited until night to have a major battle? I always thought it would be better during the day, maybe after noon when the sun wasn't so hot. I don't know. I don't think it's smart to fight with limited visibility but maybe that's just me._

_dareth, ma tan: be safe, you three_


	9. Chapter 9: Hawke in the Bush

She was getting tired. It wasn't that she was fighting so hard as to be tired. It was a combination of the rain and constant wind; the pressure of having lives that depended on her and people who looked to her for control and stability; the ache between her shoulder blades growing with each arrow she loosed; the hunger gnawing in her stomach coupled with the fear of the battle; the fear of failing - she had never lost before and if she did now it wouldn't be only her that lost but a group of people much larger, some of them perhaps more important, than her clan.

She was out of arrows again, her quiver emptied for the fourth time that night. And the darkspawn kept coming. For every one that was struck down by a sword or axe or multiple prickling arrows there seemed to be a dozen to take its place.

Emma sighed and looked around.

The soldiers charged with their defense were fighting desperately - tooth and nail like something wild - against the darkspawn horde. The elves stationed with her unit had slowed as they were forced back and forth between the quartermaster and the front line to replenish quivers, their chests heaving as adrenaline kept them moving, their legs stiff with use, their eyes wide with fear. The center section had suffered heavy casualties as the darkspawn directed their own arrows back at the slightly built elf with her glowing red eyes and shimmering copper hair, her body steaming as the cold rain drenched her. She should be shivering, she knew, under the constant downpour, yet her own adrenaline was keeping her warm, blood pumping through her veins, heart pounding against her chest like a bird frantically trying to fly away.

This was supposed to be the final battle, Cailan's triumph over the ancient creatures that plagued the world, but it wasn't going according to plan. The strategy had seemed so sound at the meeting earlier that day, and her own tactics with the volleys of hailing arrows had been devastating. But it was clear early on there were enough darkspawn it didn't matter how many fell to the archers.

The Dalish elf stepped down from her platform to the nearest quiver - just filled by a black-haired elf with skin that gleamed like onyx in the flashing lightning and sheen of rain and sweat covering his body - and fired smoothly. There were darkspawn pressing against the barrier of shields, the ones in the back urgently growling and grumbling to those in the front.

And then they were through. They swarmed over the men and women, coming up behind them and cutting off retreat or aid. Their dark forms bolted for any bowman they could reach, ragged blades cutting viciously across armor and flesh. The air had been filled with indistinct screams and shouted orders, but now those same sounds echoed around the young woman as she stood frozen in fear.

"Warden!"

She turned slowly. The sound blended with all the others, muffled and distant and cut-off as the wind pulled it away.

"Warden!"

None of those close by were calling her. Maybe she was hearing things and no one was calling at all. She loosed another half dozen arrows as another gap broke in the line; four darkspawn fell back. But it wasn't enough.

She hadn't thought to watch the rest of the army and their progress - or lack of, considering how badly things were going here. She didn't know where the Tower of Ishal was from her place on the field and didn't know which way to look to spy a signal that would send the teryn's men to their rescue. Because that's all it would be now - a rescue of what little men could be saved from this failed attack.

"Warden." A hand clamped on her arm and she instinctively pulled her bowstring back, realizing only after that she had no glinting broadhead on the end of it.

"You're the Warden," she said, her voice hoarse from shouting orders above the screeching wind.

"We both are," the woman smiled grimly. She knew what the elf meant - she had been the Warden present when the girl had woken after her Joining. "Duncan has orders for you. Get to the Tower of Ishal, find the other two, and get out of here! Go now."

"But I -"

"It's not a suggestion, Mahariel. We're both going. And no matter what happens, you'll keep going. Don't look back. Don't slow down. Just run."

She had barely nodded before the woman was tugging her behind, pushing and shoving her way through the confusion, using her sword as much as her arm. They weren't the only ones headed back towards the camp within the ruins of Ostagar. As they continued, more and more joined them, their will to fight extinguished and their desperation for survival lighting their eyes with fever. They were like stampeding horses, a sight Emma had seen only once in her life but remembered well.

They were across the bridge and in the tower's courtyard before she even realized it, without ever knowing which direction they were facing.

"Damn." The Grey Warden dropped to one knee beside a hurlock. "Looks like they found a way into camp behind us. Had the same plan, didn't they? But the signal's lit." The elf followed her gaze upward to where a bright torch of flame and smoke, visible even through the sopping rain, sputtered defiantly. "So those two must have made it to the top. If we wait, they'll be back down. Right?"

Emma shrugged. She didn't know what was happening anymore. She couldn't think, couldn't breathe. She knelt down in the mud, closed her eyes, and her tongue stumbled over a prayer she had learned long ago as her mind flashed with white-hot pain. She thought she heard screaming but couldn't be sure it wasn't just the wind.

* * *

><p><em>The winter sunshine wasn't nearly as warm as Emma had hoped. Her fingers were frigid, bare against the smooth grain of her bow, and she knew she would fumble with the arrows in her quiver if she missed her first shot. Her face was patched with a dark paint she'd made from berries, as dappled as the shadows she hid in, her arms covered in brown wolf fur, her knees wet from kneeling in the snow to follow the faint tracks. The beast was clever. Even dragging its quarry behind it, it had left little sign of its passing. But Emma had found it now and watched it carefully from the other side of the clearing, her back resting firmly against the ancient pine tree, its needled branches offering her all the protection she would need as she balanced on one of the thinner limbs near the middle.<em>

_The wolf that had killed two halla and dragged a third away had no pack, and that made it dangerous, the _hahren_ had told her. The young elf was under directions to attack only if she was certain she could do so without being harmed, otherwise she was to lead it back to where the hunters waited a distance from the clan and they would take the kill back to Keeper Marethari._

_Yet this was her test. If she could handle a savage wolf alone, it would prove she was ready to take her _vallaslin, even early as it would be_. And the clan would stop calling her Emma Da'len as they had continued to do even after she insisted she wanted to be called, simply, Emma. She had to do this on her own. She had to become a hunter._

_She raised her bow, an arrow nocked and ready, the fletching a dull silver, her first three fingers wrapped around the string with her forefinger - above the arrow and the other two below forefinger anchored at her mouth, her first finger above the arrow and the other two below it, her grip on the bow relaxed as Tamlen had taught her. She didn't focus on the arrowhead, knew that doing so would cause her to miss as she wouldn't be able to see the bigger picture. She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, then took another, exhaled and released halfway through._

_The arrow flew straight, a streak of brown and grey in the meadow light, and the wolf had only a second to yelp and jump back before it stumbled to the ground and lay unmoving in a growing pool of blood._

_Emma should have been proud. She dropped from the tree, landed lightly on her feet, slung her bow across her back as she ducked beneath the branches and walked out into the meadow. She should be thrilled. The shot had been excellent, one that most hunters would be jealous of and proud to claim as their own. It had taken seconds to judge the shot and release, the beast never aware of the danger it was in, her movements as silent as the snow-laden forest, and she had showed no hesitation. Yet her breath came quick and caught in her throat as she knelt beside both dead animals. Her shoulders shook and tears streamed down her cheeks - the only warmth she felt in the cold forest._

"_Falon'din," she whispered. "Guide the soul I have just sent you. It did no wrong save what it was meant to do as a hunter of the forest. _Elgar ghilana mir din'an la mir nehn'an. Ma serannas, falon fen._"_

* * *

><p>She blinked once and tried to sit up. A cool hand forced her back down, the faint conversation stopping and the flickering candle moving suddenly. The light on the wall grew brighter as it came closer, shifted as it was set on a bedside table, and a face was suddenly peering into hers, the eyes a dazzling blue that matched the summer sky perfectly, her dark hair cut short and choppy and falling into her eyes, a swipe of red and brown across the bridge of her nose, the corners of her lips turned up in a satisfied smile.<p>

"I think she's broke the fever," she laughed lightly.

"Good."

"I'll get her something to eat. She must be hungry."

"You can sit up now, if you like, but slowly. And don't put any pressure on your back - and use your left hand for pushing."

Four voices, none of them she recognized. She thought it odd that the last would tell her to use her left hand; she used it for most things. She sighed and closed her eyes. It all seemed like too much effort - sitting up, looking around, asking questions, thinking, breathing. Her back was burning and itching. She was acutely aware that a chair had scraped across the floor and a door closed as another opened. And then she could feel the air on her skin, her back bare without her armor, her chest directly on the sheet beneath her.

"Where am I," she whispered.

"Lothering." It was the first voice, the one that had a face. "Lucky you. You're getting a bann's treatment in our little hovel."

"Matti, it isn't that bad. At least it's clean and dry and warm."

"So were the tents at Ostagar. I'm sure there's a slew of 'spawn lounging in comfort in them as we speak."

"You were at Ostagar," the elf asked. Her ears perked up in curiosity. She looked over as the woman nodded, a deep frown on her face, her hand reaching absent-mindedly to her nose. Another hand swatted it away.

"I've told you not to scratch it, it'll only get worse."

"Oh, Betta, I'd say your poultice is what makes it burn so bad. You sure you didn't put anything poisonous in it?" The smile was teasing despite the accusatory tone.

"Neither of you are being very good hosts. Help her get dressed."

"Yes, Mother." The first woman scooted over as a second came into view. She had the same dark brown hair, curling to her shoulders, golden brown eyes, a red scarf wrapped around her neck. She held out a dress, her smile warm and comforting, and slipped it over the elf's head, tugging it gently over her ears.

Emma sat up abruptly, slipped her arms into the sleeves and pulled the skirt down over herself, holding it tightly to the mattress. The material was smooth but still felt rough against the ridge of sensitive skin on her back and she grimaced. They laughed at her shyness, her cheeks flaming. The oldest sat at the foot of the bed and handed her a bowl. Her grey hair was tied low and loose at her neck, her bangs swept to the side and falling from behind her ear, blue-grey eyes motherly.

"Eat something," she urged. "You've slept since my children brought you home with them."

"You were at Ostagar," Emma said, staring with wide eyes at the woman who was discreetly scratching her nose. "What happened? Where is everyone? Where is Duncan and Alistair and Allen and … everyone?"

"Dead, most likely."

"Carver!"

He was leaning against the far wall, arms crossed over his chest, a two-handed sword strapped to his back, moving the curtain aside to stare outside from time to time. His eyes shifted between the world outside and the strange elf on the bed.

"It's true," he grumbled, "and I think she'd rather have a straight answer than anything Matti would tell her."

"Are all your answers crooked, then," the elf asked.

Matti laughed again. "I like you." She wiped her hand across her eyes - inevitably hitting her nose in the process - and winced. "The name's Mathilda Hawke. You call me Matti or you call me Hawke. That's my little sister Bethany and my little brother Carver. And this is my doll of a mother Leandra. You, little elf, are Rosebush."

"Rosebush?"

"Beautiful to look at and prickly, but bearable."

"Beara-wait, you haven't answered my question. What happened at Ostagar?"

"You don't want to know," Carver said after a minute of silence.

She looked around the room. They wouldn't look at her, their eyes cast at the floor or the walls or each other. She didn't like being ignored. She fidgeted on the bed, wishing she had an arrow to toy with when a thought struck her. "Where's my bow?"

* * *

><p>Emma had been to what was left of Lothering's market with Bethany, had gotten lost in the crowd, and ended up on the edge of the village just inside the short fence that was meant to keep wolves and bears out of the streets. They don't know much about wild animals, she thought. The poles were staked into the ground and came up only to her waist, and while she was shorter than anyone she'd met - standing at only five feet and three inches - even she could easily jump over them. A wolf would have no problem with the same task, and a bear could practically trample the beams beneath it.<p>

What caught her interest now was a different caged creature, this one inside the village limits, his skin a bronze tone and his hair pure white and braided in tight rows, eyes a vivid blood red, standing nearly two heads taller than her and still, for the most part. He would follow those walking past with his eyes, his head moving incrementally, seeming disinterested in the goings on around him. Currently, he was staring at her as she stared at him.

She stood up from the fence and crossed the packed dirt to stand in front of him, her hands clasped behind her back, hair loose beneath the deep cowl Bethany had given her to hide her _vallaslin_, a smile wide on her face. His frown deepened.

"Hello," she said brightly.

"You are not one of my captors." His voice was deep and smooth, his eyes narrowed. "Leave me. I will not entertain you any more than I have the others of your kind."

"Are there other Dalish about?" She turned a circle and shrugged as she faced him again, her right shoulder itching suddenly as the still-forming scar protested the movement, however slight it had been. "I don't think there are any clans this far south. They've probably all moved north by now, what with the _Banalhan_ and the darkspawn and all the unpleasantness down here. What are you," she asked suddenly.

"If you know nothing of the Qunari you are ill-learned."

"I am, actually. I grew up in the Brecilian, never left it except for when I went to see Dornian and Annine in Bruesby Village, and then never stepped foot inside the town itself but stayed hidden in the grass that they fed sheep on. I know there's a lot I don't know but I'm trying to learn. Doesn't that count for something?"

"Yes."

She beamed. "What are you doing in there?"

"I'm in a cage, aren't I."

"Yes. But why?" He offered no answer. "If I tell you why I'm here, will you tell me why you're there?"

"Perhaps."

She sighed happily, sat down on the ground with her legs crossed, leaned back on her left arm with her right in her lap and thought of where to start. She could keep it very simple and short - the battle at Ostagar and her salvation coming in the form of the Hawke family - or she could start at the very beginning of her journey to becoming a Grey Warden. The Qunari watched in silence, content whether an answer came or not. Then she took a deep breath and said, very suddenly, her words flowing into one another, in a breathless way:

"There were _shemlen_ in the forest and they were too close to our camp so we threatened them and they told us about a cave that had treasure inside so we found it after killing one of them and the others ran away and Tamlen wanted to go inside but I didn't but we did anyway and there was no treasure but there was this thing that might have been a demon but maybe wasn't and it could have been a darkspawn but I don't know and I killed it and then there was this mirror and Tamlen touched it and I blacked out and woke up back with the clan where Keeper Marethari told me I had to go with the Grey Warden Duncan or I would die so I went with him to the king's camp at Ostagar and took the Joining after going into the Wilds and meeting Asha'belannar and her daughter and then I became a Grey Warden and King Cailan put me in charge of the archers for the battle and that was supposed to be the last battle and Teryn Loghain was supposed to come up behind the darkspawn but he never did even though he supposed to because the signal had been lit and he left everyone down there to die and I think that everyone is dead except for me and the Hawkes because they saved me at the Tower of Ishal and I don't know what to do anymore!"

She rolled her shoulders and looked up at the Qunari, his eyes wide and his jaw set in a hard line. "So," she said conversationally, "what are you doing in there?"

It was moment before he answered. "I killed two families - eight people - men and women and children."

"I killed two men. Well, sort of killed two men. I ordered the death of one man, and killed a different man. And then I smiled about it afterwards, like they didn't matter. Like they weren't important to someone somewhere. Should I be in a cage too?"

"Do you think you should be?"

"If I did - decide I should be in a cage with you, that is - how would I go about getting in there?"

"Tell the Revered Mother."

* * *

><p>Leliana had been standing before one of the many candle-filled altars inside the Chantry, her lips moving in silent prayer to the Maker and his prophetess Andraste. It hadn't been long since she'd had the vision. A dream, others called it, but she knew better. She knew the Maker had spoken to her, that He would guide her to find the Wardens who needed her aid to defeat the Blight. She had no doubt that this was a Blight, despite what others thought, and she would do all she could and all she was told by the Maker.<p>

"Don't touch that!"

She looked up at the harsh voice. Normally, the templars were only curiously disinterested; they had seen too many new faces in the past weeks for a new one to warrant such a reaction. Now four of them stood in a half circle around a small figure with a hood pulled over its head, backed into a corner, hands empty. For now, she thought. She rushed forward, past the refugees who looked on, past the sisters who stood in shock at the templars' sudden and seemingly unprovoked ferocity.

"Gentlemen," she said, smoothly stepping in between the fully armed and armored men and the form who had no visible weapon or armor yet looked about to bolt. Such an action, she was sure, would result in the men chasing after simply on suspicion. "I am sure there is no reason to frighten everyone who has come to the Chantry for refuge and peace. I will see to our friend personally. Please, do not trouble yourselves further."

Her arm looped around the stranger's shoulders and the figure tensed. An elf or a child, she thought with one raised eyebrow as she felt the slim build. The templars filed away, casting wary glances over their shoulders.

"Perhaps we should take a walk outside, yes," Leliana whispered.

There was no show of compliance as she led the hooded figure to the sturdy double doors nor was there any resistance. She took it to be a good sign - and even if the stranger was only trying to think of an escape, the cloistered sister was confident in her own abilities to remain unharmed.

The doomsayer was still shouting in the small fenced in yard, his dark skin and unruly hair marking him as Chasind, one of the people who made their home in the Korcari Wilds. Even they had been pushed out by the growing number of darkspawn. Leliana was certain now that she had to find -

"Rosebush!"

They both jumped and Leliana thought for a minute that the stranger pressed closer to her side. But it was only a minute, as in the next she showed no hesitation walking towards the two women just past the Chanter's board, her hood pushed back to show a sheepish smile and an elaborate tattoo that stretched across her forehead and down the bridge of her nose, the design somehow angular and elegant at once, copper hair tucked behind pointed ears.

"We've been looking everywhere for you, Rosebush," the dark haired woman said with a crooked smile, her blue eyes guarded as she glanced at Leliana. She clapped her hand on the elf's shoulder. "What are you doing at the Chantry? Don't tell me you're going to convert to the Maker's side."

"No," the elf shook her head adamantly. The woman laughed, her arm slung loosely around the other's shoulders - perhaps her sister, Leliana thought - and turned them both back into the village.

"Well, let's get back home before Betta's convinced you're in league with those pesky templars. She won't forgive you easily, you know. Come on, Rosebush."

"_Ma serannas_," the young woman said with a dip of her head which caused the hood to fall back into place and her face was cast in shadow again. "I think I was bothering them with too many questions. It would seem I'm forming a habit of being saved by humans," she added as she followed after the others.

"Rosebush," Leliana whispered to herself. It was an appropriate name, with the red-tinted hair and eyes and the ruddy tattoo on such a pretty face. Yet there was something about the name that stirred a curiosity in the sister, some inkling of a thought just forming in the back of her mind. She pursed her lips and tapped a knuckle against her chin. And suddenly, she knew.

After she'd woken from her vision there had been a rosebush in the garden - a single blooming red rose amongst the brittle black branches.

* * *

><p><em>Author's note: This one's early because last week's was late. Tadah! (Thanks to Bert-Wrighty for the brainstorming help.)<em>

_Elgar ghilana mir din'an la mir nehn'an. Ma serannas, falon fen: Guide this spirit into death and into a place of joy. My thanks, friend wolf._


	10. Chapter 10: Lothering

The sky was pink and red and gold as Alistair stepped outside, breathing deeply and as evenly as he could manage to keep himself in control of his emotions. By all rights, he should be dead. He was still amazed that he had woken up in the ramshackle hut in the Wilds. It seemed the old woman, much to the dismay of her barely-dressed, purple-tinted black-haired, golden-eyed daughter, was determined to keep the Grey Warden order alive in Fereldan. Why it mattered to her so much he couldn't guess, but he was grateful all the same; without her he would be dead. He rolled his shoulder experimentally, awed that there wasn't so much as an itch where the arrows had pierced him.

The morning sun had bruised the sky a deep greyish purple by the time Allen woke up. He rubbed his eyes as he leaned against the house, his shirt forgotten at the foot of the bed he'd occupied for the past few days, yawning. The older Warden rubbed the back of his neck in guilt. Where he had the faintest of scars - as though his injuries were years old already - Allen still had bruising on half of his body, his skin an ugly yellow and deep blue that was almost black, tender to touch, and his ribs would need another treatment by skilled hands before they wouldn't bother him with every movement and every breath.

"Close to death," Alistair remembered the grey haired woman muttering after the two apostates had laid both men down in the dimly lit cabin. Morrigan had frowned over him, taken off his armor, ripped his tunic and liberally applied a numbing agent to the three arrow wounds. "Barely breathing. Girl, bring me the brew."

Alistair floated in and out of consciousness then, waking only to the pain that shot through him as the numbing salve wore off or to the prodding fingers that applied a number of other concoctions. Allen had not stirred until now.

"How are you feeling," Alistair asked quietly.

"I was about to ask you that." Allen shuffled over and stood at the edge of the marsh that bordered the clearing of their hosts' house. He closed his eyes, crossed his arms loosely, and soaked up the sun. "I'm fine, see. I know Fergus isn't dead - he's too good for that - but I know that Duncan is."

"Are you saying that … No. Nevermind."

He glanced over and was silent for a moment before he let out a breath - halfway a sigh and halfway a grunt of pain. "I didn't mean it like that," he mumbled. "It's just that Fergus had a better chance at surviving since he wasn't in the battle. And Duncan was in the thick of it, right next to Cailan. They're both dead now, aren't they?"

Alistair nodded glumly. "Mahariel too, I think," he said heavily. "And all the other Wardens, all the soldiers and knights and the mages - everyone. They're just … gone."

"Except …"

"Except?"

"Morrigan told me Loghain quit the field, that he left," Allen hissed. "All of his men are still alive right now. The whole of the army would be alive if he hadn't been a coward! We have to do something about it. Alistair, we -"

"No." The older Warden shook his head. "We haven't any proof, no one would believe two deserters, and I don't know how we'd even go about finding Teryn Loghain."

"Besides," the old woman quipped, startling the two men as she came up behind them. "You have the Blight to worry about, don't you." She laughed erratically, her head thrown back and her shoulders shaking. "You're Grey Wardens after all, the only two left here in the Wilds, and it's your duty as Grey Wardens to stop the Blight."

"And how are we going to do that," Alistair asked in dismay.

"There has to be a way," Allen mumbled, frowning as he thought.

"Are you forgetting the first time you came here? There was that clever little elf with you. I like her. Do I? I think I do." She laughed again.

"Of course! We can use the treaties."

"What treaties?"

"The ones that Duncan had us get when we were out here before," Alistair explained, his face eager as he turned to the younger man. "There's three of them - one for the dwarves and one for the Circle mages, even one for the Dalish clans. We can use them to gather an army against the archdemon and -"

"Wait, what? What's an archdemon?"

* * *

><p>"There it is. Lothering. Pretty as a picture."<p>

The three stopped and stared over the town. There was a bustle to it that, oddly enough, showed no hurry. The fields were packed full of refugees from smaller villages to the south, milling around with no purpose, tents strung together between buildings, boxes and trunks strewn about as though they'd been picked over. They probably had been, considering the 'toll collectors' the Wardens and their companion had just encountered on the highway.

"There is the tavern and inn," Morrigan said, her finger extended to one of two large buildings near the center of town. "And that is the Chantry. I would suggest staying away."

"Only because you're an apostate," Allen shrugged.

"Indeed." She crossed her arms haughtily and glared. She glared a lot at the two men her mother had forced her to accompany, though she had to admit she was glad to be away from the Wilds where she had spent all her life. "I would also suggest that we find a room for the night before I decide to turn you both into toads."

"Allen," Alistair said abruptly. Until now, he had been very sullen and quiet, watching his feet for most of their journey, a deep frown creasing his forehead into a V, seeming to come out of his own world only when they were confronted with darkspawn or bandits. "Have you looked over the treaties?"

"No."

"So you've finally decided to join us," Morrigan quipped. "Was falling on your blade in despair too much trouble?"

"Is it so surprising to you that I'm upset? What would you do if your mother died?"

"Before or after I finished laughing?"

"Right. Very … creepy."

"You have been pretty quiet," Allen added, hoping to steer the conversation away from a full-blown yelling match. The two had come very close before, and he didn't doubt that the Witch of the Wilds would act on her threats if she was pushed enough.

"Yes, well … I was thinking."

"No wonder it took so long." Allen cast a baleful glance towards the woman. She turned her head to feign ignorance.

"This is the part where we're shocked to discover you've never had any friends."

"I can be friendly, if I desire. Sadly, desiring to be intelligent does not make it so."

"You -"

"Enough! Morrigan, leave him alone. Alistair, what did you want to say?"

"I think using the treaties is our best option but I think we can get help elsewhere." He paused, uncertain of whether or not he should continue and just how much he should reveal about himself. His past was little known to anyone in the Wardens and now he thought that perhaps no one knew at all with the death of so many. And he wasn't entirely sure that was a bad thing.

Allen urged him to go on with an inquisitive look and small nod of his head. "I know Arl Eamon. He's a good man, well-liked in the bannorn, and he won't stand for what Loghain's done. If we asked him I'm sure he would help us."

The noble Warden nodded thoughtfully for a moment, then sighed and smoothed his hair back from his face, looked at Alistair and stared over the packed village.

"You're the real Warden here. You decide."

"There aren't really any ranks in the order, you know, just official titles in case of …"

"In case of what?"

"Things like this," Alistair sighed. "Duncan was Commander of the Grey here in Fereldan. With him gone, we should report to the nearest Warden-Commander in the Free Marches, but it could take months to locate any Warden at all. And you're the one that said we had to do something."

"Alright. Let's go see what we can find out in town and we can make a decision then."

They walked down the ramp and weaved through the closely spaced tents. Morrigan glared at everyone and everything that moved, hooked her cowl up and over her head in one fluid movement, and sauntered away yet was still within eyesight of the two. Alistair, who carried the allowance Duncan had given to the three newest members of the order, shoved his hands deep into his pockets to ensure the purses stayed there. Allen easily adopted an air of indifference, his shoulders squared and his own glare discouraging interference from any bystander. None would come, of course, as the refugees were all unarmed and wary of new faces - especially ones coming from the south in armor.

The inn's tavern room was musty smelling, full of warm bodies and stale air and old liquor, but pleasantly lit. And not as pleasantly occupied, the three noticed. There was a group of armed men, their surcoats all bearing the same mark over chainmail armor, all in good health, and all a little drunk. They surrounded someone of small stature.

"Loghain's men," Alistair whispered. "This can't be good."

"If they're looking for a fight, I'm more th-"

"Gentlemen, please," a voice interrupted, tinged with an Orlesian accent, and a red-headed woman stepped forward. Her hair was cut in a blunt line above her shoulders, a matching pair of daggers strapped low on her back for quick and unhindered access, her robes marking her as a sister of the Chantry.

"This is just another poor refugee," she continued. "Surely you are mistaken in thinking that she could be a Grey Warden." The two Wardens near the door exchanged a look. "They all died at Ostagar, after all. And she is much too young and small."

"Out of our way, Sister. She's a Warden and Loghain is looking for her."

"Captain -"

"Take the Warden!"

Swords slithered out of sheaths and the room filled with a flurry of chaos as refugees moved to escape the flashing blades. The sister moved forward, her own twin daggers singing through the air and making contact with the flat of the blades rather than the sharpened edges; men crumpled to the floor beneath her touch. Allen and Alistair shared another glance, palmed their own weapons and joined the fray - if the target of these men was indeed a Grey Warden, they couldn't risk losing her. They followed the lead of the Chantry sister, their weapons knocking men unconscious, bruising skin and cracking , avoiding killing blows. The scuffle was over just as quickly as it began, the captain at the end of Allen's sword, his hands up and empty, eyes wide with fear. His soldiers were moaning quietly or completely silent.

"Thanks for all your help," Alistair muttered as Morrigan hoisted herself onto the counter and watched with bright yellow eyes.

"You didn't need it."

The door slammed open behind them and the Warden turned to face the three who walked in, the woman in the lead stomping and smiling ruefully, the slash across her nose seeping fresh blood, her hair mussed as though she'd been in a fight. She had a sword on one shoulder and a dagger on the other, another tucked into the top of her boot. The man directly behind her held a broadsword loosely in hand, the flat of the blade resting on his shoulder - a sure sign that he didn't carry it simply to look imposing. The third, another woman and smallest of the trio, lingered in the doorway, golden brown eyes scanning the room.

"Leli, Leli," the leader said with mock disappointment. "Did I not say that bringing our Rosebush to such a filthy place was a bad idea?"

"You did," the woman in Chantry garb nodded. "She was curious. I could not say no to her."

"Even if you had, she'd have pricked you with her thorns and wandered in anyway." She cast a glance at the two strangers with their swords still out and defensive stances. There had been only a handful of Grey Wardens at Ostagar, and she instantly recognized the blonde man as one of Duncan's favorites - and Cailan's. "Carver, get our little Rose and take her back to Mother. Betta, you go too. Leli, bring your new friends and come for dinner."

Carver sheathed his sword on his back and stepped around both Alistair and Allen, knelt beside the sister and lifted a trembling form in his arms, holding her close to his chest, careful to avoid the growing spot of blood on her back; Bethany left with him, trailing behind and offering what little she could in the way of comfort. Leliana relaxed and straightened a wrinkle from her dress, frowning at a spot of blood on her sleeve.

The woman stepped forward, leaned in close to the captain, sniffed disdainfully. She contemplated what to do for a moment, shrugged, and turned back to the door. "I'll leave him to you," she waved over her shoulder. "And if anyone has a problem with the company I keep … Well, you know where to find me."

The door closed solidly. Alistair's stance slackened as he looked in confusion to Allen and then Leliana. "I feel like we missed something," he muttered.

"I dare say you miss much," Morrigan chuckled.

"Hey!"

"Could you not do this again," Allen hissed. He didn't know what to do with the man in front of him, didn't want to take his focus off him in case he thought he could get away, and the bickering was a distraction. The room was still unsettlingly quiet. He could feel the eyes on him - wary and mistrusting, wondering what he was going to do not only with the soldier but after. No one would blame him if he killed the man; no one wanted another sword pried loose with drink; no one was willing to offer a suggestion. He had never held another's life in his hands so often as when he'd come to this pitiful town.

Loghain's men, Alistair had said.

"Take a message to Loghain and I'll let you live," he said quietly, venom in his voice so the man knew he meant business. "Try anything like this again, and I'll kill you."

"W-What message?"

"We know what really happened at Ostagar. And if he wants the Warden dead, he'll have to do better."

* * *

><p>The door to the bedroom opened and the group, talking quietly about events at Ostagar and rumors spreading throughout Fereldan since Loghain's passing through Lothering, looked up as Bethany stepped out. She wiped her hands on a blood-stained apron, untied it from her waist and sunk gratefully into the chair that Mathilda emptied. She slumped forward, head in her hands, and when she spoke the exhaustion was clear in her voice.<p>

"I knew I should have stitched it in sections the first time. It would have made this much easier. Now the scar's going to be even uglier."

"You've done the best you can, Betta," Carver mumbled. He'd finally relaxed and allowed himself to sit and eat rather than keeping watch over those passing by outside. Not only were he and his older sister army deserters, they'd thrown in with Grey Wardens - people being hunted by one of the two teryns. It was Mathilda's reputation for having sharper and quicker blades than her tongue that kept them all safe. For now.

"Did someone try to cut my Rosebush at the roots," the eldest Hawke child asked now, a pitcher between her feet and a cup held out to her sister.

Bethany drank the contents before answering. "She says it wasn't a sword but a shield that scraped across her back and broke some of the stitches. Either way, it would have hurt. And either way, I had to pull them all out and put more in."

"Ouch," Mathilda winced sympathetically, her hand moving to feel a scar on her upper arm. Her nose twitched as her scabbing skin began to itch again, but she ignored it.

"How is she doing now," Alistair asked quietly.

"Sleeping. I'm sure she'll be hurting when she wakes up; the numbing salve wore off before I had finished putting new stitches in but she didn't move. That takes incredible control. I can see why she's a Warden."

"We should all get some sleep." Leandra's voice was muffled behind an armful of blankets. She dropped them now in the center of the room. "The girls can have the beds and the boys can have the floor."

"Thank you again," Alistair said, standing and offering a slight bow. "Letting us stay … can't be easy for you."

Leandra nodded, wrapped her arm lovingly around Bethany's tired shoulders, and led her into the adjoining room. Carver followed after a moment with a curt nod, his sword slipping off his shoulder. Morrigan took a choice blanket, gathered it over her head and disappeared into the second room. Allen leaned back in his chair, tipping the legs off the floor, as Alistair grumbled about sharing a room with the icy woman. Leliana dragged a thin blanket after him, still thinking that perhaps she should make the house a little less crowded by returning to her room at the Chantry; yet if the Wardens left in the morning she wouldn't know until it was too late. Mathilda was the only other one to stay in the room, seeming relaxed even though her hand fluttered to the knife in her boot on occasion. She trusted that the villagers wouldn't try anything stupid; the soldiers, she wasn't so sure about, and she wasn't going to let her guard down when her family was concerned.

Morning found Allen sprawled on the floor, a blanket pulled to his chin, snoring lightly; the eldest Hawke still watched the door with alert eyes; her family slept comfortably in the next room, Bethany and Leandra sharing the bed much as they had when the children were young, Carver on his back with his stomach bared and his shirt crumpled further up his chest; Alistair and Morrigan had unknowingly edged closer during the night, drawn to one another's warmth, and slept with their backs together behind the door leading into the room; Leliana vacated the bed she was given at some time during the night and slept on the floor instead, opting to be close to the Dalish archer.

Emma's eyes flickered open, a faint glow to them in the dim room, curtains drawn over the windows. She sat up and stared at the woman for a moment, then stood, wrapped a blanket around Leliana's shoulders, patted her on the head and left the room. Her bare feet padded against the floorboards and Mathilda turned, hand reaching for the hilt of her sword. She smiled as the elf poured two cups of water and joined her in a chair at the table.

"Feeling any better, Rosebush," she asked as she ran a hand through her hair.

"Yes, _ma serannas_."

"You should leave."

The elf started at the sudden suggestion, her eyes growing wide and her mouth opened as she let her breath out in a huff. The woman smiled unapologetically and shrugged.

"It's not that I don't like you, Rosebush," she explained slowly. There was an edge to her voice that hadn't been there in previous conversations. "It's just that you're a bit more trouble than I figured at first. And now your friends are here; you can go with them. I've got my hands full looking after my family." She chuckled. "As if having an apostate wasn't trouble enough, Carver and I have gone and deserted, adding on top of that the fact that we're aiding Grey Wardens. If any of us are found out we'll all die. It's safer for everyone if you leave. Today."

Emma was silent for a moment, staring down into the water and watching the ripples as she tilted the cup. She drew a breath and smiled suddenly, her mouth spread wide and her cheeks rosy, though her eyes remained unlit by the effort.

"_Ma nuvenin_._ Ma melava halani. Serannas, falon. Ghilan'nain ma ghilana na vir, la Mythal enansal ma'eth._ I'll not soon forget you." She touched her fingers to her lips and then her brow in a sign that the human woman was unfamiliar with, and Mathilda was tempted to ask just what it meant but shrugged it off.

* * *

><p>The group had somehow grown without the original members being aware of it. They left the Hawke's after a quiet breakfast consisting of slightly stale bread, dried meat, crumbled cheese and a swig of fiery brandy to wash it all down. The cloistered sister, now dressed in simple leather armor with her daggers peeking from beneath a full pack, had accompanied them to the village's edge where Allen assumed they would part ways. A knowing smile played at her lips as Emma stopped beside the caged Qunari and spoke quietly to him. He agreed to whatever she said with a curt nod and was suddenly stepping out of the iron bars, rolling his shoulders and glowering in the bright morning sunshine, red eyes slitted.<p>

"What are you doing," Allen asked, dismay and shock and perhaps even fear playing across his face.

Emma turned and cocked her head, one shoulder drawn up in a shrug. "I like talking to him. Besides, he said he'll help against the _Banalhan_ for ..."

"Oh great. You hired us a mercenary and we haven't any coin."

"I am not a mercenary," the Qunari said in a threatening manner. Or maybe it wasn't threatening. The companions couldn't be sure - everything about the giant man before them seemed imposing and dangerous, after all.

"This is a fine creature," Morrigan added. "Proud. Strong. He should not be left in a cage to starve and rot. I support the elf in this matter."

"My name," Emma said, dangerously quiet, her eyes closed. Alistair shifted uncomfortably. He hadn't known her long yet knew her enough to know she was angriest when her words were hissed through clenched teeth. "Is Emma Mahariel. Not elf."

She spun and walked away, hair whipping in a braid behind her, heels pounding into the dirt and sending up small clouds of dust, a quiver tapping against her hip, a shortbow - practically a toy compared to the Dalish longbow she was accustomed to - gripped tightly in hand. The Qunari was the first to follow. Then Leliana, tucking her hair behind one ear as she tried not to smile at the way Allen had cringed. And, one by one, the others fell into a line behind the small Dalish elf that had suddenly - and unknowingly - become their leader.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: Hey guess what ... I just got my wisdom teeth out!<em>

_Ma nuvenin_._ Ma melava halani. Serannas, falon. Ghilan'nain ma ghilana na vir, la Mythal enansal ma'eth: As you wish. You helped me. Thanks, friend. May Ghilan'nain guide your path, and Mythal bless you with safety._


End file.
